Pet, Tales of a Drow Slave
by Rachel
Summary: Sequel to the story, 'Coming of Age'. Its been a hundred years since Vinlesu was given her Wood Elf slave whom she calls 'pet'. Now, Vinlesu's bother and sister plot together in order to earn favor with the matron, with Pet as the target. This story was done with the help of author Paul Lucas, its rated 'M' for mature content, and a incestuous relationship.
1. The Tavern

Pet: Tales of a Drow Slave

By Paul Lucas and Rachel12

The Tavern

The echoing call of the city's guardian wyverns marked the beginning of another day. Hilfy blinked her eyes open, taking in her Mistress's opulent bedroom, nestled deep in the folds of silk and satin of Vinlesu's expansive bed. The only illumination emanated from a cold magical flame from the distant, ever-burning corridor lamp.

Hilfy began to stretch, only to stop herself as she felt a warm soft body snuggling close, a thin arm with midnight-dark skin draped protectively over her own abdomen. Her Mistress, the Drow sorceress Vinlesu, had been in a very affectionate mood of late. When Hilfy first became her body slave, Vinlesu would simply use her for her own pleasure than dismiss her back to the slave quarters. But then she began inviting Hilfy to spend the night, sleeping together. And lately the Drow elf had begun snuggling up to Hilfy much more during the night, unconsciously hugging her close, as they slept.

Hilfy could not stifle a contented yawn, and Vinlesu stirred behind her. "Mmmm...sleep well, Pet?"

The red-haired elf nodded. "Always in your arms, Mistress."

"That pleases me." Vinlesu pulled Hilfy close, molding her soft body tight against her slave's. She absently began rubbing the elf girl's flat tummy. The elf girl giggled. Even after over a century of life, she was still a bit ticklish there.

Hilfy sighed contentedly. "You have always taken good care of me, Mistress."

The hand rubbing her belly stopped. "No. No, I haven't, Pet." Hilfy felt gentle lips kiss her earlobe, a pleasurable shiver rippling through her. The elf girl leaned back into Vinlesu's warmth, offering herself with well-trained submission to her owner.

Vinlesu made no demands of her, gave Hilfy no detailed instructions, as she had once did when Hilfy was new to her bed. It was true that they were now so well-practiced with each others such things were rarely needed. Hilfy at times liked to pretend that maybe it could be something more, but always pushed the thought out of her mind. She was Vinlesu's property, and nothing more. A favored toy.

The Drow kissed her neck, nibbling on her shoulder. Hilfy whimpered in pleasure as onyx fingers caressed her small breast. He fingers orbited her soft mound for an agonizingly long time before they tweaked at Hilfy's sensitive nipple. The Wood Elf's own hand reached back, sliding gently along a sinuous thigh pressing against her own. Her Mistress rolled her over onto her back, leaning up to kiss her lip to lip. Their tongues danced.

The Drow's hand glided lower, shifting between Hilfy's legs. The elf girl opened herself, gasping, loving Vinlesu's expert fingers as her Mistress teased and tickled her creamy thighs, her lightly-haired pubis, and finally her slowly-opening pink petals. Their kiss turned longer, deeper, Hilfy whimpering throatily as a fingertip slowly worked its way into her.

The fingers circled inward, exploring, stretching, the heel of the Drow's dark thumb vibrating gently over her nubbin. Vinlesu broke the kiss looked down at her body slave, smiling as Hilfy thrashed about in ecstasy, murmuring soft prayers to her blasphemous Wood Elf gods the deeper the Drow's dark fingers probed.

Vinlesu nibbled and licked the elf girl's sharply pointed ear, seeing the slave's whole body tense, her thighs quivering sharply. She knew Hilfy was fast approaching her precipice. "Come for me, Pet," she commanded with a soft whisper in Hilfy's ear. "Show proper tribute to your Mistress."

Hilfy, conditioned by years as a submissive body slave, was sent instantly over the edge of orgasm by Vinlesu's sex-soaked words. She moaned and thrust her quivering hips hard into the air, her innermost folds spasming powerfully around the fingers deep within her. For many long heartbeats she hung suspended there, climaxing for her Mistress, until finally she collapsed back onto the bed, gasping from exertion.

Vinlesu cooed, pleased, even as she shifted onto her knees over Hilfy's head, a leg next to each of the elf girl's pointed ears. The body slave immediately licked up, making contact with Vinlesu's already moist treasure. The Drow moaned in pleasure, arching her back and rubbing her breasts. "Good Pet," she encouraged. Hilfy repeated on Vinlesu with her tongue what the Drow had done to her moments before with fingers. Her Mistress gasped audibly. "Very good, Pet."

Her Mistress bent down, and suddenly Hilfy felt a hot tongue on her own sex. Vinlesu's body felt warm and sinuous on top of Hilfy's own, their skin a contrast of light and dark. Hilfy bent back up to her task, lapping hungrily. Her Mistress's cleft always had the most pleasant taste, like salty wine. Her tongue orbited the outer lips, slowly sinking into the Drow's depths, before moving forward to mold her tongue over Vinlesu's small puffy center, vibrating ever so slightly.

Her Mistress hugged her tight even as the Drow lathed the elf girl's entire sex, inside and out, top to bottom. Hilfy brought her fingers into play, sliding two into her mistress's drenched crevice. The Drow began the quivering and gasping Hilfy well recognized as her build-up to orgasm. A few more licks, and her mistress arched her back and cried out, her clit spasming hard against Hilfy's expert tongue. It wasn't long afterward until Hilfy was licked to a second shattering orgasm.

The two females lay there afterward, one on top of the other, gasping and reveling for a moment in their physical intimacy. Then the wyverns cried again, and Vinlesu sighed. "I'm afraid we must start the morning, Pet." She pushed herself off, allowing Hilfy to roll off the bed.

As the Wood Elf bent to gather her Mistress's clothes, Vinlesu slapped her behind, just enough to sting. Hilfy straightened and looked back to see her Mistress smiling. The blow hadn't been a punishment so much as a casual, affectionate reminder of dominance. "You're a good Pet, Hilfy," Vinlesu said, one of the rare times she could ever remember her Mistress using her real name. Hilfy bowed in submissive thanks. It appeared Vinlesu wanted to say more, but in the end all she did was wave dismissively to her body slave to carry out the expected duties for the day.

No slave of the Drow was allowed to wear clothes. Ostensibly it was to make sure they hid nothing, but Hilfy was smart enough to know it was really to make sure their slaves remained feeling vulnerable and exposed to help quash any real thoughts of rebellion.

As a body slave, it was her primary duty to ensure her Mistress's sexual pleasure, but she had other duties as well, such as helping the other slaves with supplementary cleaning and kitchen work. She did not mind it at all, as she was assured light duties only. She was not allowed any work where there was even a chance her tasks could mar her physical appearance, even with the dark circles of exhaustion.

She was sweeping one of the palace's smaller libraries when Jaelna, Vinlesu's brother, walked by. He stopped at the carved entrance way and looked in, frowning. One of the elite soldiers assigned to General Aran, Lord Jaelna was tall and muscular, with a shock of pure-white hair pulled into a functional pony tail. Still youthful by Drow standards, he often wore the cocky smirk of a warrior well into his physical prime.

"Slave," he said with a bored frown. "Where is your Mistress? I have been searching the whole palace for her."

She smiled submissively at him, but kept her gaze down, as she had been taught. "I'm afraid I'm unaware, my lord. She did not tell me her plans for today. I humbly apologize."

He waved dismissively at her and seemed about to leave when  
he looked her over again, from her small feet to her long orange-red hair. "I remember you," he said. "You're that Wood Elf we captured after that battle on the surface a number of years ago. I've seen you with my sister many times, but never really paid much attention."

Hilfy nodded, trying to block out her own memories of that conflict. Her entire family had been killed. Vinlesu herself had killed her own father, and now wore his signet ring jewel as a navel ornament. She knew-somehow-that her Mistress wasn't really to blame, that it had been a desperate battle among long-running enemies. It was just the way events worked out. But still, it was all Hilfy had done since then to forget and do what she could to survive.

Jaelna affected an affable smile, and approached the small Wood Elf. He brushed her hair gently from her face with his knuckles. "I must admit, my sister chose well in making you her body slave. Very comely. But it must get very...frustrating, sleeping with only women, and not having a male to satisfy your needs. It is too bad your Mistress does not use you for her games the way she used to."

When she had first come into Vinlesu's service, the high-born Drow had at first used the Wood Elf as a toy, showing her off in taverns, putting her in contests with other Drow to see which slave could take the most males within a set time, or having her used in public with other exotic species of slaves, such as humans or felinoids. She had been relieved beyond words when Vinlesu eventually became tired with such things. "My Mistress always pleases me, My Lord."

He frowned again. Obviously not the answer he had hoped for. He cupped her chin in his powerful hand, looking down at her with steel-hard eyes as he stepped close. "You misunderstand, slave. I say it must be frustrating for you to have no man to satisfy you."

She gulped and looked away nervously, suddenly desperate for a means of escape, but finding none. "Y-yes, My lord. It is very f-frustrating."

She flinched as his rough hand grabbed at her small breast, pulling at the nipple with uncaring strength. "Better. And am I not a gracious lord, to give worthless slaves what they most desire?"

"My-My lord, please, I am my Mistress's property..."

He yanked at her long hair painfully as he sidled his body hard up against hers. "I am well aware of whose property you are, slave. And she owes me more than a few favors. I think a dalliance with her favorite toy would be a good start at her paying me back."

He cupped her sex forcefully, shoving a finger in dry. Hilfy cried out in pain, tears brimming. Jaelna's smiled cruelly as he pulled out a long battle knife and scraped its edge along her cheek, making her very aware of just how sharp it was. "And make no mistake. You are going to please me, even if I have to cut you for lubrication."

"Jaelna! What in the Nine Hells do you think you're doing!"

The Drow male spun and saw his sister Vinlesu at the library's entrance, fists clenched, her smoldering anger unmistakable. "I'd heard you were looking for me, brother, but I had not expected to find you damaging my property!"

Jealna laughed, unconcerned, but did disengage and back away a step from Hilfy. The elf girl shook in naked relief. "Just having some fun, sister. She is only a slave."

"My slave!" Vinlesu spat. She stalked over and yanked Hilfy forcibly away from her brother. "You are not to touch her again! She is my property, and I will not have you damaging her!"

The Drow female turned her back on her sibling, straightening Hilfy's hair with gentle fingers. "Are you okay, Pet?" she cooed.

Hilfy nodded, then whimpered a bit, seeing Jaelna's face purple in anger and frustration behind his sister. "You owe me, Vin! The least you could do is let me play with one of your toys."

She looked back over her shoulder, crinkling her nose as if regarding wyvern dung. "Then find another. Not this one. You always have to ruin my things. Still a spoiled little child after all these decades."

He kicked over a carved sandstone lectern, snarling. "I'm your brother! She's just a slave! How dare you put her above me! I'll just take her when you're not here, then."

Vinlesu spun, her expression the coldest Hilfy had ever seen as she regarded her brother. "You touch her again, Jaelna, I will make sure you pray to have your life sucked out of you in the spider pits."

Jaelna started at the venomous, apparently very serious threat. Then his eyes narrowed, looking at his sister, then at the wood elf, then back again. His brows flew wide in realization, then knitted again. His anger was still there, but now restrained, calculated. "This is not over. I will talk to the Matron about this." He spun and stalked out of the room without a backward glance.

Vinlesu turned back toward her body slave. "Did you lead him on in anyway, Pet? Please tell me you didn't!"

"N-no, mistress, I swear! He asked me where you were, I told him I did not know, and then.." she shivered. "...And he said that I wanted him, but that wasn't true! Then his hands were on me."

Vinlesu nodded, setting her dark lips in a grim line. "I believe you, Pet. That sounds exactly like him. But I fear he may cause trouble because of this." She sighed. "Things can never be easy with my family."

"She actually cares for that...thing she shares her bed with!" Jaelna complained to the Matron Auvryant as Vinlesu's family gathered for their traditional midday meal. They sat at a large, lovingly-carved table hewn from a single immense block of obsidian. Servants, ever quiet, submissive, and efficient, bustled about them, gathering plates, serving food, and refilling mugs. Besides Vinlesu and her brother, her older sister Sadra shared the dining table with the clan's matron and head of household. "She was willing to put its welfare over my pleasure!"

The Matron shrugged, unimpressed. Three centuries older than any of her offspring, she held a world-weary frown under her stately, darkly elven beauty. Her snow-white hair was pinned up in an intricate braided bun, with twin streamers of her locks spilling to her shoulders. Her dark blue sorcerer's robes and gold jewelry were designed to both blend and contrast almost hypnotically with her dark skin. The very picture of a powerful and affluent Drow sorceress. It was a look both of her daughters at times tried to emulate, but often failed to capture the intricacies of. "She also said you were holding a knife to the pet, threatening to cut it. I would be upset as well. Body slaves represent a substantial investment in time and money to train well. You always were a foolish boy when it came to knowing the value of things, Jaelna."

The Drow male slammed his fist on the table, sloshing blood wine in several cups, fuming silently. Vinlesu smirked triumphantly. That might have been the end of it had Sadra not spoken up.

Sadra, the eldest of the three and by far the most openly ambitious, dangled her knife on the wine-soaked roast cave spider in front of her. She expertly cut open the leg and pulled out the whitish meat, chewing thoughtfully. "Still, it sets a bad example. The other slaves might get the idea that they are not at our disposal, that they could occasionally refuse. It might lead to trouble and punishments, maybe even a few eliminations. And that would certainly cost us as well."

Vinlesu frowned. Like her, Sadra knew how to play up to the Matron's one great weakness: money. All the power and influence in the Dark Kingdoms would count for naught if the House Auvryant were headed by paupers. The streets were filled with the detritus of failed houses whose downfall had been their own crushing debts.

"The slaves do have an inherent value," Vinlesu protested to her older sister. "They are subservient, not stupid. Both they and we know their value. No Drow household could run without them. It is not unreasonable that they would expect us to act to protect our investment."

Jaelna was on his feet, slamming his palm onto the heavy basalt table. He grabbed a serving girl by the arm, a very scared-looking surface elf like Hilfy, and shook her violently. "If you actually think these creatures can think like we do, you are more pathetic than I thought, sister!" He shoved the servant girl away, all but throwing her to the ground.

"Enough!" the Matron commanded, and they all quieted down. A withering glare made sure Jaelna took his seat again. She sighed, then looked at her brood. "Both my daughters raise good points. The slaves are part of our household, and they would be right to look to us for limited protection-from those outside our household. But they must never be under the impression that they can sow dissent among those of our House, even incidentally. Vin was right to protect her...investment, but that slave must now also be punished as well, to make sure her peers understand that there will always be consequences for defying us."

Jaelna sneered. "I know the perfect punishment. Let me..."

"No!" Vinlesu protested, perhaps a bit more vigorously than she intended. "Um, you have already proven to be untrustworthy with my property, brother. I will agree to this punishment as long as you and your-knife-come nowhere near her, and she is not permanently harmed."

Jaelna harrumphed and crossed his thick arms, then let a smile slowly cross his lips. "You used to use that one for entertainments in the taverns, did you not? Anraku of the Illithid Claw is has been looking for something exotic to entice patrons. And she's certainly that, with her red hair. Let her be entertainment there tonight, just a show with one of Anraku's slaves. I think a night of sexual humiliation in front of hundreds of her betters would be appropriate punishment."

"But..." Vinlesu began to protest, but the Matron held up her hand.

"That seems fair," her mother said. "Make the arrangements, Jaelna. But you are not to harm the slave except for this 'show', understand? The matter is closed."

Vinlesu cut her eyes at her brother, who was smiling smugly. It was very unlike her brother to suggest such a lenient punishment. He had something planned.

They talked of other things, and when the meal ended the Matron asked Vinlesu to stay behind so they could talk privately. When the other two were gone and the servants dismissed, her mother stated, "You have not been sleeping with Jaelna as I asked you to."

Her daughter nodded slowly. The Matron had asked to her to be at her brother's sexual disposal whenever he wanted, to help ensure his loyalty. He was of the elite guard, and was likely to begin training soon as a Shadow Knight, as Sadra was, in the service of the Empress. The Matron dearly wanted another of her own in such a position of influence, and a simple thing like incest among her offspring was not going to stand in the way of that.

"He has grown tired of me," Vinlesu said. One of the side effects of such long lifespans of the Drow was the penchant to grow easily bored, even with the forbidden. "At first he was very enthusiastic about it, but then grew frustrated when he found out there were...limits with me." The younger Drow shuddered at some of the things her brother had suggested. "The past few years he has instead taken up with feminine boys and those of such ilk. He can victimize them much better to his taste in ways he can't do to me."

The Matron nodded solemnly. "And do you have feelings for this pet? Hilfy, her name is?"

Vinlesu blinked in surprise that her mother knew Hilfy's name. "She...is simply an expensive investment, as we discussed. Jaelna and Sadra have favored swords we are not allowed to touch. Can I not have a favored pet?"

The Matron rubbed the expensive rings on her fingers absently. "It is not that uncommon to develop feelings for a body slave, daughter. Many do, though they would never admit it, even to themselves. It happened to me, two centuries before you came screaming into the world. He was a human. I kept him for forty years, even using magic to keep him healthy and virile long past his prime. He had the most stunning dark eyes..." The Matron sighed, her memories momentarily focused on the long-ago.

The younger Drow blinked, surprised at such a revelation. Humans were well-known to be the most difficult of the races to enslave, exactly because their passion for freedom burned as bright and briefly as their lives. To think that her great Matron had once had one as a favored lover... "I assure you that is not what is happening here, Mother. Hilfy is just a favored toy. I have spent many years training her just right."

The Matron nodded. "I am glad to hear. But even if it were so, and I'm not saying it is, these things pass, daughter. They always do, sooner or later. But your family, the scheming black-hearted lot they may be, will always be here. No matter what you may or may not feel, do not let this slave bring harm to our clan. Understand?"

Vinlesu could only nod as the Matron turned and left.

"I-I see," was all Hilfy could say as Vinlesu told her what was expected of her later that night.

"It will be only for a few hours, Pet," Vinlesu said. "You've endured such things before. Just this one last time, to satisfy my idiot brother."

Hilfy bowed her head, nodding absently. "Yes, Mistress."

Vinlesu felt her gut churning. Why did she feel she was feeding a little wyvern chick to a cave spider? "Um, I am going to talk to the tavern owner now. Corrum and Ferr will have you delivered to the Illithid's Claw at the proper time if I am not back by then. They and the rest of the household knows you are relieved from any duties for the rest of today and for the next three days as well."

"Thank you, M-mistress," Hilfy whispered, her voice threatening to crack. Vinlesu could not help but see the single tear meander down the wood elf's rosy cheek.

She reached out to wipe it away, then stopped herself, scowling. What was she doing? Hilfy was only a slave! With a soft curse, she snapped on her traveling cloak and left the palace without another word.

"An ogre!" Vinlesu exclaimed.

Anraku, the fat tavern keeper, nodded. They were in a corner of the broad common room of the Illithid's Claw, while his slaves and hired help moved quickly to clean and prepare the ancient inn for the coming night's onslaught of patrons. A large, cheetah-spotted felinoid moving tables caught her eye for a moment. "Its what Lord Jaelna arranged, my Lady. Bloodfist is my best gladiator, and your brother has won many bets thanks to him. He wants to give Bloodfist an extra reward for that with that elf girl tonight."

"An ogre will rip her apart!"

Anraku shrugged. "Bloodfist has had other elf women. Most of them survived."

"Most..." Vinlesu sighed. She knew her brother had been planning something! She couldn't back out of Hilfy's punishment. It would look like she was defying the House Matron, and her family would lose face besides, having already promised the entertainment to the Anraku. "This is unacceptable. Arrange another partner for her!"

"I cannot, my lady. Your brother made me swear a blood oath to use Bloodfist. I thought it odd at the time, but..."

The Drow female snarled and grabbed the pudgy male by the lapel. Her battle knife flashed into her hand, its tip a half-inch into the flesh of his thick neck in an eyeblink. He cried out, blood trickling down the blade. "The knife is a hair's breadth from your carotid artery, pig. The tiniest flick, and you bleed to death. Now you will arrange for another partner!"

"I-I cannot!" Anraku whimpered. "I'm sorry, my lady, but your brother will only slay me later if I break the blood oath! You kill me or he kills me! What am I to do?"

Vinlesu threw the tavern owner back, growling. Anraku stumbled and fell, hand on his throat to staunch the bleeding. He would survive.

Cursed gods, she couldn't just slay the tavern keeper. It was her right as one of the Drow elite to take the life of any lesser if she saw fit. But taking such an extreme action would only make it look like her brother was right, and she was sure he and Sadra would milk that scandal for all they were worth. She thought furiously. Hilfy...

She looked down on the gasping and shuddering tavern keeper. "If this ogre was injured or otherwise indisposed, you would be within your rights to choose a replacement, wouldn't you? Without breaking the blood oath?"

Anraku swallowed and nodded. "Aye. But murdering Bloodfist would sure to raise many questions with your brother, my lady. It would have to be a truly legitimate excuse."

Vinlesu smiled thinly. "Who said anything about murder? I wish to be a new patron of yours today, to arrange a gladiatorial match. Short notice, of course."

Hilfy was shivering almost continually as she was led out by two Drow tavern maids onto the tavern floor, clad only in a long cloak. Her Mistress hadn't returned. She had hoped to see Vinlesu, just for a little bit, before her ordeal. Being with her Mistress always brought her comfort. But she didn't even have that now. She was alone in a sea of hostile strangers, trapped, about to be raped in front of hundreds...

She was led to a broad table covered over in fresh, colorful linen in the center of the large tavern's cavernous common room. The crowd, an ocean of midnight-dark faces and ghost-white hair, cheered and taunted her cruelly, more than one hand shooting out to feel her up if she stepped too close.

She tried to keep her breathing steady, but failed. She kept telling herself she had done this before, dozens of times, in one variation or another.

But she had never gotten used to it. Never. All she could remember was the pain and humiliation from those sessions, of the soreness and welts that would haunt her for days or weeks after. When she could remember them at all. There were times her Mistress had drugged her, as she had been near-hysterical with fear and panic just before.

The tavern maids whisked the cloak away from her, revealing her nude form to the gathered crowd. A hush fell over the crowd as they drank her in, then the entire room erupted with yells, cheering, and whistles. The wood elf girl hugged herself tightly.

The accompanying girls made her drop her arms and twirl around, to make sure everyone got a full look at her. Then they instructed her to lie on the table and await her partner. She did so, clumsily, and the girls forced her spread her legs so every one could see her most intimate places. She shut her eyes tightly, tears welling up as her face burned brightly in helpless humiliation.

Another loud cheer went up, and Hilfy knew her partner had entered the room. She could imagine the kind of partner a cruel man like Lord Jaelna had arranged for her. She felt a large presence move between her legs and heard a feral, very male chuffing. A hulking shadow fell over her eyes.

She couldn't help it. She began sobbing aloud, memories of long, painful, public rapes from her early days as a Drow slave bubbling up in her again. From the sounds, her actions only seemed to incite the crowd more, many now anxious to see her violated and forced.

"Hilfy?" Came a soft voice, vaguely familiar. Gentle fingers wiped away her tears. She blinked up to see a large felinoid leaning over her, a male with a spotted tan coat of fur and long golden hair. It took her a second through the blur of tears, but she recognized him.

"K-Kerran?" He had belonged to the House Auvryant, like her, for a short period a few years ago before he was sold again. He and Hilfy had enjoyed a brief, but very pleasant dalliance together. She always remembered him for his gentle demeanor, how he had always been gentle and kind to her, despite his much bigger size.

The crowd jeered and booed, impatient. A lash cracked across Kerran's furry backside, making him wince in pain. He looked into her eyes, and she felt the tip of his throbbing member at her tight entrance. His eyes were pained, but not from the feel of the lash. "I'm so sorry Hilfy. I have to do this. If I don't..."

Tears still streamed form her eyes, her face still burned bright pink. But her hand moved up to grasp his, his fingers moist from her tears. "Its okay," she said softly, managing a faint smile. "I'm glad its you."

Another crack of the lash, and he entered her. Still dry, Hilfy winced and cried out in pain, making the crowd cheer and laugh wildly.

Fifty paces away, near the bar and mostly ignored by the patrons, Jaelna snarled in the tavern owner's face, the tip of his battle knife jabbing into the plump man's loose chins. "Where in the Nine Hells is Bloodfist, you slobbering oaf! That elf is supposed be getting ripped in two by an eight foot ogre!"

"M-m-my lord, please," Anraku begged. "There has been complications..."

"My blade knows no complications, oath breaker!" Jaelna tensed and seemed about to slice the tavern owner open when another battle knife clanged against his, knocking the weapon away. Jaelna dropped the fat man, who immediately crawled away whimpering loudly.

"Vin!" Jaelna snarled, further curses on his lips, then stopped short when he took a good look at his sister. The left side of her face was heavy bruised, a purplish welt rising from her cheek and eyebrow. Her left eye was red on pink, a sure sign of a broken blood vessel in the orb. She stood shakily, but the one part of her that did not quaver was the arm holding her battle knife to him.

"Like the owner stated," she said quietly, smiling to cover the wincing pain of her cracked rib. "There have been...complications. Your blood oath did not prevent Anraku from using Bloodfist for other ventures, such as a gladiatorial combat called for by a new patron, especially when the ogre was asked for by name. Since the ogre was...incapacitated and won't recover for weeks, Anraku was well within his rights to arrange for a replacement. He was kind enough to listen to my recommendation for that."

Jaelna shook his head, snarling at his sibling. "But that doesn't make any sense! Bloodfist was the best gladiator in the city! Who could have beaten him like that?"

Vinlesu's wicked smile was all the answer her brother needed. He swore an oath to all spiders. Vinlesu chuckled, cutting it short as it triggered a sharp ache in her torso. "Urm. Well, I had wanted to see if I had gotten rusty in the combat arts, and it seemed like a fair test. Luckily a lot of my training had come back."

That last was a bald-faced lie. That ogre had almost pounded her into pulp, despite her supposed elitist training with blades. She'd had to resort to magic to win. But none of the patrons she had dragged in off the street to act as witnesses complained. She had been the patron of the match after all, and it was up to her to set the rules she wanted. It was not her fault that the ogre knew no spells of his own. But even so, it had been a very near thing.

Jaelna snarled pure hatred at his sister, shifting into a fighting stance. "Trickery, nothing more! You did this deliberately to protect that worthless slut you keep in your bed! I swear, sister, perhaps I should finish what the ogre started!"

"That will be enough of that!" came another voice, hard as steel. "You will not threaten your sister like that again, Jaelna. Understand?"

Both siblings turned and goggled at their mother standing not five feet from them, flanked by two of her personal guards, former Elite Guards. Both of her children bowed with the formal greeting they were expected to make to her in public. "Matron Auvryant, this scheming sow..."

"Enough!" their matron snarled, speaking low so only her son and daughter could hear. "Under no circumstances are you to ever show such dissention among us in such a public place again! That goes for both of you! This incident is over. Understand? Jaelna?"

The male Drow fumed, sparing his sister a cutting glance. But eventually he nodded curtly before spinning and stalking away. Vinlesu looked at her mother. They both knew that this was actually far from over, as far as he was concerned.

Anraku had recovered, and groveled low before the Matron. "Great Lady, your presence in my humble tavern is a truly great honor. Anything that I might have, is yours!"

The Matron sneered down at the tavern keeper. Her guards grumbled with well-practiced, theatrical menace, hands on their sword hilts. "Yes it is, cockroach. It has come to my attention that my daughter here has gone to quite some...trouble to make sure you had your entertainment this evening. As recompense, you will hand over all your profits from tonight over to my house."

Anraku blinked. "A-all my profits...?"

The Matron raised a snowy eyebrow at the fat man at her feet. "Problem, cockroach?"

He trembled, bowing low again. "O-of course not, Great Lady!"

She smirked, watching the undulating, gasping pair of naked bodies on the far-off table. "Good little insect. I must admit, this seems a mildly profitable venture here. Perhaps we will lend you other pets of ours for entertainment in the future. Perhaps we will even let you keep a few coins from those nights, if they prove profitable enough."

After a few more minutes of grateful groveling, the Matron dismissed him. As soon as he was gone, with most other eyes on Hilfy and Kerran, Vinlesu finally collapsed a bit against the bar, allowing herself to look just a little as weary and pained as she felt.

The Matron spared her only a brief glance. "Is everything well, daughter?"

Vinlesu nodded, gasping for breath. "Yes mother. Just had a spot of trouble with an ogre and my own sentimental foolishness."

"So my spies told me." The Matron was silent for a few minutes, contemplating the tavern with pursed lips. "I want to thank you for today, Vin."

The younger Drow blinked. "For what? Nearly getting myself killed and scandalized?"

For the first time in years, her mother gave her a genuine smile. "For showing me that at least one of my children has more to them than petty scheming and squabbling. We Drow are not much ones to talk of passion or determination or courage, but they are important qualities nonetheless, especially for one who may one day head a House like ours."

Vinlesu blinked in surprise. "Mother, I have no intentions of heading the House. My ambitions lie elsewhere..."

The Matron held up her hand, cutting off her daughter's words. "I am aware. But it is the long-established way of succession in Houses like ours, that more than likely I will one day find a dagger in my heart, and one of my children will be clutching the handle." She chuckled darkly. "All I am saying, daughter, is that after today, perhaps the curses on my lip at that moment will be a bit less vehement, if it is you on the other end of that knife."

Vinlesu opened and closed her mouth several times, unsure what she could say to that, or even if she should say anything at all.

Both the Matron and the entire tavern was suddenly distracted by a loud, strangled cry of passion. All eyes turned toward Kerran as he peaked and mated Hilfy, who was clutching at him desperately.

The Matron chuckled, then narrowed her eyes at the pair of slaves gasping through their post-orgasmic exertions. "So," she said casually. "Tell me about your body slave's partner. He seems familiar..."

Hilfy bounced up and down on the felinoid's stiff member with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. They had been at it for three hours now, with very little chance to rest. Hilfy was very sore, inside and out, but she had no right to complain. Kerran had been lashed a number of times since they started, for not being rough enough with her, not acting feral enough, or not lasting long enough. No matter what, Hilfy did not want that to happen to the gentle felinoid again. As a high born lady's property, the tavern workers would not dare damage Hilfy in any way. But Kerran was the tavern's slave, and they could punish him with impunity.

He had done so much to comfort her, even protect her after a fashion, even while he was forced to ravish her one time after another. She had wanted this position not only to let him rest, but to protect him as well. She splayed her body protectively over him as she pumped her hips, his legs over the edge of the table, wanting at least one of his orgasms tonight to be free from lashing or thrown mugs or thumping hands or various flying body fluids.

She was just glad the crowd was at last thinning out. Perhaps they could stop soon and finally get some rest.

Suddenly she felt arms snake around her abdomen and pull her vertical. She was about to protest-it wouldn't be the first time some overly-bold patron had tried to lay hands on her-when she felt a warm cloak being draped over her shoulders, and a familiar voice spoke into her ear. "Do not worry, Pet. It is just me."

"Mistress!" she cried with relief and joy.

Vinlesu nodded, holding her body slave close, helping her move gently up and down on top of the felinoid male. "I have been watching you since you came out, Pet, making sure no one caused you any real harm. You performed magnificently. There will be many jealous hearts in the city tonight, knowing that I have you in my bed, and not in theirs."

Hilfy nodded, smiling, leaning back into the Drow. "I'm glad..."

"You two can stop now," Vinlesu said, then smirked. "Unless you'd rather not."

The Wood Elf girl nodded vigorously. "We do, Mistress! Only..." She glanced down at her fellow slave, who was now flushing brightly through his thin facial fur, a faint trembling building throughout his body.

"Ah, I see. Are you close, slave?" she asked him. "You may speak honestly."

"Y-yes, Mistress," he said, gasping. "Very close..."

"I see." Vinlesu's hands wrapped around Hilfy as the Drow stood at the table's edge, between Kerran's legs. She pushed her hips back and forth into Hilfy's cloak-covered backside, helping her slave rock back and forth on the male. She whispered into Hilfy's ear. "Then come for him, Pet. She him how much you appreciate what he has done for you tonight." Her hands dropped into the cloak and onto Hilfy's cleft, rubbing gently as her body slave worked the throbbing male shaft within her tortured folds only an inch away.

Hilfy cried out. Feeling safe and warm in her Mistress' arms, conditioned by years of sexual obedience, it took only a few heartbeats of the Drow's fingers working her tortured sex for her only orgasm of the night to quickly wash over her. Vinlesu held her tight as she quivered and cried out, hunching her hips hard on the felinoid. A few breaths later the male peaked and emptied himself deep into the Wood Elf, snarling ferally and arching his back high. The few remaining patrons gave a ragged cheer, many of them bowing graciously to the high-born lady afterward and thanking Vinlesu for giving the performance a fitting ending.

Afterwards, Hilfy had been horrified to see Vinlesu's facial welts, but the Drow dismissed it. She frowned deeper at seeing the dozen fresh reddish scars on Kerran's back and legs. Vinlesu spoke to him as she idly rubbed Hilfy's slim shoulder. "You did very well today slave. I am glad I remembered you."

Kerran bowed submissively. "You were always a gracious Mistress to me."

Vinlesu laughed. "No, I wasn't. And you should be wary of false flattery, especially in your new position."

"New position, Mistress?"

She glanced back at her Matron, sitting by the bar still flanked by her two dour-looking guards, smiling thinly at them. "Yes. My mother was very...impressed at the stamina and tenderness you showed tonight, and wishes to experience it herself, with you as her new body slave. She has bought you from the tavern keeper. She is your Mistress now. Go to her." Kerran nodded, and with a submissive but hearty thank you to Vinlesu, he did as he was told.

"I will be seeing more of him, then," Hilfy observed.

Vinlesu shrugged. "Perhaps, but not for quite awhile. Knowing my mother, tonight will just be a warm-up for him. I just hope she gives him a day or two to rest. It would be a shame to spoil such a...good investment with overuse."

The high-born Drow sighed, giving her body slave a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder. "Come, Hilfy, let's be to our own bed. It has been a long day, and we both have hurts that need tending to."

Hilfy blinked in surprise. Did her Mistress just say "our" bed? And the affection she was showing just now...

The Wood Elf shook her head. No. Just another one of her Mistress's moods. She was Vinlesu's property, and could never hope to be anything more. "Yes, Mistress."

Vinlesu led her body slave out of the tavern and back to the palace of the House Auvryant. Hilfy followed, as she believed she would gladly do for the rest of her days.


	2. Siblings

Pet: Tales of a Drow Slave

Siblings

Hilfy stridently scrubbed away at her Mistress's midnight-skinned back in the large palace spring. Small blue flames from eternally-burning magic torches lent a dim, graphite luminescence to the water and the lichen-covered stone walls.

Part of House Auvryant's influence came from the fact that its palace, captured from a rival clan generations ago, sat upon one of the natural artesian springs that fed water into the vast caverns in this province of the Dark Kingdoms. A side benefit was that water was never an expense for them, and they had one entire room set aside, with diverted run-off from the spring, for their own small, personal bath chamber. A few enchanted heating stones here and there ensured the waters were always at a pleasant temperature, and the small network of shallow pools became a very pleasant focal point of house activities, for lord and servant and slave alike.

"Scrub harder, Pet," Vinlesu directed her body slave. The high-born Drow was a necromancer in training, and had just finished a very grisly night's work. Master Necromancer Grixx had been teaching her the enchantments needed to animate a corpse's skeleton as an automaton under her control, and had made her do it over and over until she got it right.

The ritual involved using spells to distill a corpse's remaining flesh, organs, and viscera into energy and then storing that magic potential in a finger bone. Vinlesu reveled in this newfound power of being able to reanimate the dead, to have such forbidden knowledge to enforce her will upon the world.

One aspect of it she did not revel in, however, was the stench, especially after the spell caused the fresh viscera of the corpse to break down into liquid in accelerated putrefaction. And the process was far from neat. She got splashed more than once. One detail non-wizards never understood was just how sloppy and disgusting a process magic could be. And it didn't help that all the dying screams from the slaves and criminals condemned to be Grixx's training subjects had given her a throbbing migraine.

Hilfy pressed the soap-moss into her Mistress's midnight dark skin, working the suds in with small drops of jasmine oil here and there, imported from the surface realms at no small expense. Eventually the sweet flower scent began overturning the sour smell of rotting flesh, and the high-born Drow began to relax and feel her headache fade. It did wonders to improve her mood.

Vinlesu leaned back into her body slave, giggling almost girlishly, and drew Hilfy's soapy hands around to her front to rest on her breasts. Hilfy smirked. "I believe I've already scrubbed there most meticulously, Mistress."

Vinlesu chuckled, then gasped a bit as the Wood Elf's thin fingers slicked over her dark nipples. "One cannot be too clean, Pet."

"Yes, Mistress." Hilfy's hands hefted her owner's soft mounds, squeezing and tweaking. Vinlesu arched her back, hands shifting back to Hilfy's creamy alabaster thighs. Hilfy was very pleased to see her Mistress's rib injury was fully healed, sustained the month before when the Drow had dueled an ogre. Even a week ago her Mistress would have winced at such movement.

Vinlesu's hands shifted together behind her, tickling playfully at Hilfy's pubic mound. It was Hilfy's turn to giggle now, as she kissed at Vinlesu's neck and her hands slid lower to return the favor.

The Drow shifted, and Hilfy's fingers accidentally encountered the emerald ring that pierced Vinlesu's navel. Her father's ring. Both women froze.

Hilfy usually avoided touching it, and her Mistress, even at her darkest and meanest, had never pressed the issue. "Foolish," Vinlesu whispered.

"Mistress, I'm sorry..."

The Drow shook her head, sighing. "I wasn't talking about you, Hilfy. I should have that removed."

The elf slave blinked. The second time in a month her Mistress had used her real name! Something was definitely changing in her owner. She had been acting much more affectionately toward Hilfy in the past year or so, becoming significantly more tender and playful.

"Mistress, please, no. It just startled me right now, is all. Besides, if you have it removed, it would raise uncomfortable questions with your siblings."

In the battle in which Hilfy was taken prisoner, Vinlesu had managed to kill Hilfy's father, a veteran Wood Elf patriarch, in the confused pitch of battle. Her first kill in combat, and a very prestigious one at that. Her Mistress had taken the ring as a trophy and badge of honor among the Drow. For her to want it removed spoke volumes of a turmoil Hilfy could only guess at in her Mistress.

Vinlesu sighed and turned to face her property. "Blast it, you're right Pet. Jaelna especially would jump at any opportunity to avenge his humiliation at the tavern, and I should give him no fuel for scandal. But if it hurts you..."

Hilfy reached to the side of the small pool to grab an obsidian bowl. She used it to gently wash the last of the soap moss from her Mistress's body. "I would rather you keep it, Mistress, if it pleases you. My father..." she bowed her head and looked away. "My father always said that we cannot know love without knowing forgiveness. That ring is love to me. It was once worn by someone I loved dearly. It is still worn by someone I love dearly."

Vinlesu's brows arched high, unsure of what to say. "Pet..."

The Wood Elf knelt in the water, shoulders just above the surface, and very gently, very conspicuously, kissed the ring in Vinlesu's navel. The Drow's expression was unreadable. Hilfy just smiled and began planting kisses down Vinlesu's dark, flat stomach, and lower still.

Vinlesu cooed and stroked her body slave's red hair gently as Hilfy found her most secretive places. "Good Pet," she whispered breathlessly as she was licked repeatedly, giving no hint of the tear trickling down her dark cheek.

Jaelna had a feminine boy slave under each arm, leading them down the twisted corridor toward the house's baths. He had borrowed them for the night from the stable at the Illithid's Claw, since the tavern's fat owner Anraku owed him mightily for letting his sister outmaneuver him the month before. The scantily-clad elven boys giggled with exaggerated girlishness, one tossing his long white hair streaked with gold filaments enticingly at the Drow lord.

Jaelna stopped abruptly at seeing his sister and her favored body slave in the baths already, the pale-skinned Wood Elf kneeling in the water pleasuring her Mistress. He scowled, turned, and stalked away. The boy slaves looked at each other in confusion, then ran after him. "My Lord?" one asked as they all turned the corner.

"Leave," Jaelna snarled low.

"But my Lord, we would gladly..."

Jaelna slammed the smaller male hard in the gut, making the boy crumple to his knees, gurgling for breath, tears of pain streaking down ruddy cheeks. The other backed away a step, suddenly terrified. "Leave!" he growled. "If you are not back at the tavern by the time the wyverns call the morning, I'll make sure Anraku has you both lashed!"

The one boy helped the other up, and they both fled without another word. Jaelna made a mental note to have them both lashed anyway.

After fuming for many minutes, he retreated to the palace courtyard, and ordered the slaves to fetch his training equipment. He stripped off his shirt, took up sword and battle knife, and proceeded to train hard through three dozen katas for the next two hours straight.

Toward the end of the second hour, his eldest sister Sadra strolled through the courtyard. Sadra was the tallest in the family by a few finger-widths, taut muscles on a wiry dancer's frame, a warrior known far more for her speed and subtle skill than her strength. She watched her brother intently for a few minutes, throwing back a ghost-white braid that reached to the small of her back, then sent a servant to fetch her own weapons. She stripped off her shirt, revealing a small, snug halter that held her breasts in place.

Weapons in hand, she stepped in front of her brother and slid into a battle crouch. Sweaty and breathless, he stopped his training kata, smiled at her, and slid into his own battle stance. Without another word, they rushed each other and attacked.

Sadra and Jaelna, both training to be elite warriors for decades now, had sparred together countlessly. No formalities were needed. Tempered steel clashed and sparked, their blades whirling from attack to block to parry to counterstrike in a continuous blur the attending servants found hard to follow. They were both skilled enough to be able to deflect potential killing blows to each other at the last second, and there were many.

Still, when they pulled away from each other fifteen minutes later, gasping doggedly for breath, they sported a dozen shallow cuts each, mostly on their left parrying arms holding their battle-knives. Sadra laughed, blowing stray streamers of hair from her face. "Well done, brother! It is about time you stopped being so defensive and started cutting loose with your attacks. I swear, sometimes you hoard your blocks to you like an old human woman."

Jaelna snickered, slipping into another battle crouch. "You are one to talk. You lead and feint at your opponent like you are flirting with one of your addled suitors at the Imperial Ball. Sometimes you need to just go for the throat, sister."

The tall Drow female pouted playfully. "And where would the fun be in that?" She called for their servants to replace both their battle knives with another full-length sword, so they could practice the two-bladed styles. They clashed again, less vigorously this time. They had the measure of each other now, the challenge gone, and this was strictly for exercise. "But I do notice you seem to be much more passionate today, brother. Almost angry."

The Drow male scowled, and redoubled his attack. Sadra blocked it, but not easily. "It is Vin and her red-haired 'pet,'" he snarled. "I saw them together in the baths this morning."

Sadra laughed, leading him into an elaborate series of feints-within-feints, almost catching him off guard in the shoulder, before he blocked it barely in time. "Ah, I see. You still smolder for Vin humiliating you at the Illithid's Claw, I bet."

"I was not humiliated!" Jaelna growled, launching a vicious series of offensive slashes.

Sadra danced into their midst with well practiced ease, whirling around him and poking the point of her sword into his backside as she disengaged. He yelped. "Clumsy, brother. Anger is only good if it is channeled at your foe. Otherwise, it is a distraction."

Jaelna rubbed his backside, ignoring her advice. "I was not humiliated," he repeated. "The slave was used publicly as punishment, as I wanted. The only thing Vin managed was to switch her partners." That had cost her greatly, as well, in the form of a punishing duel with an ogre to make the switch.

Sadra shrugged. "But that still did not prevent the incident from gaining you our mother's displeasure, and making Vin her new favorite."

The male grunted, calling for a servant to bring them a waterskin.

"I bet you would like to get back at her." Sadra said, thinking, then smiled wickedly. "You know mother has ordered Vin to satisfy you sexually should you ever crave it."

Jaelna's scowl deepened. "I'd rather not go down that path again."

Sadra canted her head at her brother. "I don't see why not. None of us could miss how immensely pleased with yourself you were when you first starting using her. What Drow male wouldn't be, making a sexual slave of his comely little sister? It was especially delicious when you began truly humiliating and hurting her. Even with magical glamours it took over a year for that one scar on her back to fade..."

Jaelna shot her a warning scowl, but his older sister only laughed more. "Oh, we all know about your 'appetites,' brother. Half the brothels in the Dark Kingdoms are richer because of them, even if they're less a few whores here and there. And you couldn't exactly keep venting them on poor little Vin, could you, with mother constantly watching?"

He called for his servants to fetch his swords, mopping his face with his discarded shirt. "This session is over, Sadra. I'd rather not discuss this again." He turned to go.

Sadra shrugged. "All you really need do, brother, is pretend to support the Matron, and Vin could be yours again. Keep mother pleased, and you could pay Vin back for the tavern, and for many more of the incidents she has heaped upon you. And all with our Matron's blessing! Tell me that taking Vin to your bed again does not appeal to you, brother."

Jaelna stopped. He stood still for a long time, thinking, before turning back to his older sister. "Perhaps," he said with a predatory grin.

"Excellent, Jaelna," their mother beamed at their traditional midday meal a few days later. "How ever did you manage something like that?"

Vinlesu shifted uncomfortably in her seat, frowning. She had to admit her brother had just pulled off yet another major coup as far as family politics was concerned. He had done that more than a few times these past weeks. His latest announcement that he had obtained for their Matron a seat on the Dais with the High Priests at the next ritual sacrifice had electrified their mother. One area where the House Auvryant was sorely lacking any significant influence and contacts was the Priesthood.

Her older brother shrugged around a mouthful of moss-baked cavern slug. "More than a few people owed me gambling debts. I let them pay in favors owed rather than money, then shuffled them around and bartered them to needier persons."

What disturbed Vinlesu most about the arrangement was Sadra's pleased smile. Normally, their eldest sister would be the one most upset with one of her siblings gaining favor in the Matron's eyes. She jealously guarded her position of influence like a dragon guarding its last gold piece. She was up to something.

Her mother's smile was predatory, thinking of the possibilities Jaelna's arrangement presented her and the household. "I am very glad you are finally learning the value of things, Jaelna. There's more to gold than just its glitter, and more to politics than just empty promises." She reached out and patted his hand. "I'm glad you are finally learning how to think like a Drow."

Vinlesu brooded as the meal quietly wore on, only occasionally engaging in the usual conversation. Finally, when they were finished and about to part for their own individual pursuits, Jaelna spoke casually. "Oh, by the way, Vin. I'll be visiting your quarters later tonight."

Everyone in the room froze, Matron and high-born Drow and servants alike. Vinlesu felt a sharp stabbing at her chest at his words. But she couldn't refuse, and disobey a direct edict from her mother in front of everyone.

"V-very well," she said in a small voice, a knot in her stomach pulling taut. Looks of surprise shot through the servants as they hurriedly went back to their tasks. Her mother's expression was unreadable, as was Jaelna's, as if he'd just asked her to pass the wine.

And that's when she spotted Sadra, grinning ear to ear.

"You are to spend the night in the slaves quarters, Pet," Vinlesu hastily told her body slave. "Corrum has already made sure that there is a bunk free and fresh hay for you.

"M-Mistress?" Hilfy asked, unsure. It was the first time in over two years that she wouldn't be allowed to sleep in Vin's quarters without obvious cause. "Have I displeased you?"

Vinlesu sighed wearily. "No, Pet. It is nothing like that. I simply...um, need to be free from distractions tonight. For my necromancer's training." The Drow Elf shifted uncomfortably. Lying to her body slave had become much more difficult than she ever thought it would be. But if Hilfy were here, Jaelna would either insist that she take part, or watch her Mistress be humiliated. Vinlesu couldn't stand the thought of either possibility. Better only she suffer her brother's abuses, and have Hilfy somewhere relatively safe.

"Very well, Mistress," was all Hilfy could think of to say. On the way out, in the hallway, she passed Lord Jaelna approaching her Mistress's quarters. He ignored her completely, as he had done since that incident at the tavern weeks ago. Vinlesu, with the Matron's blessing, had issued an order than Hilfy was to remain untouched by any in the household. And since Jaelna could not torture or use her, he chose to pretend that she didn't exist.

Still, it was odd. Hilfy could never remember seeing Lord Jaelna smile quite so broadly as he did just now, entering his sister's bedroom.

No, that's not quite true. She had, years ago, when she had first become a slave, but could not quite recall the cause. It had been so long ago, and Hilfy had been struggling with her family's death and her new enslavement at the time that she had not paid much attention.

The Wood Elf hastily bustled to the slaves' quarters, praying her Mistress would be well without her.

"Strip for me, Vin."

The Drow female's cheeks burned under black skin as she moved to obey her brother sitting on the edge of her expansive bed. He watched her with great anticipation. His eager grin would be almost comical, a caricature of male sexual lust, if she did not already know what waited for her later in the night.

She perfunctorily moved her hands up to lower the wide straps of her dark blue robes. She absently tried to think of all the spells she knew that could cause him pain and the places were she would most like to cast them on his body. But of course she couldn't. Her mother would be apoplectic if she used magic to harm one of the family, and it would scandalize the house besides.

She sighed. The only thing she could really do at the moment was her duty, as her mother had instructed her. But that was all she was required to do.

Cloth whispered over her skin as her silken robes puddled to the floor, revealing her ebon-skinned body to him. His eyes roamed over her hungrily, from her rounded shoulders, lingering for long breaths on her pert breasts, down her flat stomach and to the white triangular thatch of pubic hair. "You were always very pleasing to look at, Vin," he breathed. "Very pleasing."

She looked away from him, her face impassive, emotionless.

He frowned. "You never acknowledge me when we do this anymore, sister. Why won't you speak to me?"

Her voice remained steady, betraying only a hint of the anger rising in her. "I only do my duty."

Jaelna growled angrily and sprang to his feet. He grabbed her roughly by the arm and threw her to the bed. She bounced once and sprawled in the satiny folds on her stomach, about to turn over when she felt her brother's weight over her, one hand on the back of her neck and the other pushing her legs apart and rubbing over her sex rudely.

She bit her lip, not wanting to cry out. She was sure that was what he wanted the most, to make her a victim. She would not give him the satisfaction.

His fingers began exploring her exposed body obscenely all over, one hand gliding over her neck and shoulders, the other roaming her rounded buttocks and her most intimate places. "It does not have to be like this, Vin. You don't always have to fight me. I could give you anything you want here. Make you feel very good..."

She gritted her teeth as a rough, callused finger was shoved into her, dry. "I only do my duty," she hissed.

His finger forced its way all the way in, unmindful of the lack of lubrication. Vinlesu cried out in pain and violation. "Always your duty!" he shouted in her ear, grinding his finger in and out of his sister, bringing her to tears. "All you ever care about is duty! That and the Wood Elf slut you keep in your bed every night!"

He withdrew his finger only to slap her hard on her backside. Within another heartbeat he had his belt undone and was lashing her rump and the back of her thighs, raising stinging welts with every blow.

Vinlesu had actually played sexual games similar to this before. The Drow lived so long that they cycled through a great many fetishes and sexual distractions every few decades. But with her brother this was no game. He honestly reveled in hurting her, humiliating her. She bit hard at her lip, doing her best to tamp her rising agony.

The blows stopped, and she heard fabric rustling as he divested himself of his clothes. She knew what was coming next. She lay there, inert, trying not to shiver in disgust.

To her surprise, she felt a tongue on her sex, hot and moist, making her gasp with surprise as it worked its way into her. Not something he had done in the past. Had he learned something in the intervening years? Or was it simply that he didn't want the struggle of entering her dry?

Still, he was down there a long time, and even licked at her welts. She shivered again, now disgusted with herself as she felt herself beginning to feel pleasure from his attentions. She had to truly struggle not to moan at the sensations. Was she really such a whore?

He shifted forward, and she felt his weight again on her back, something hot and throbbing at her entrance. His breath was beside her ear. "Say my name, Vin. At least give me that."

Silence.

A strangled growl of frustration later he shoved himself into her hard, almost burying himself completely in her with one long stroke. She grunted and clutched at the sheets, trying not to make any more sound than she had to as her brother began pounding into her relentlessly. He bit at her shoulder and wrenched her hair painfully back, but the most that ever escaped her throat were occasional soft grunts.

He began slapping her behind every few thrusts, making it quiver, stinging her new welts. She tried not to whimper, only urging him silently to hurry up and finish. Thankfully, he began jackhammering into her, a powerful shudder working down his larger frame that Vinlesu recognized as one of his precursors to climax. She felt his warm sweat drip onto her neck.

His fingernails raked down her dark back, causing her to arch in surprise and pain. Despite herself, she whimpered just a bit. That seemed to have been what he was waiting for, as all at once his thrusts became very ragged just before he went rigid. Vinlesu could feel his shaft spasm as her brother's hot seed shot deep into her.

He rolled off her after he emptied himself, panting. She looked at him briefly as his eyes met hers, then she turned her head to look away.

He dressed and left without another word. Far off, she heard a loud crash of something being smashed against a wall.

Hilfy sat on her bunk in the broad slaves quarters deep under the palace proper, worrying about her Mistress. The rumors of what was happening between Lady Vinlesu and Lord Jaelna was running rampant. As most of the slaves rarely saw anything of the world outside the palace, in-house gossip was by far their favorite past time. Since Lord Jaelna's behaviors had gotten so much worse since he last slept with his sister, some did not even expect Lady Vinlesu to survive the night.

Hilfy could only hug herself as some took bets on her Mistress's life.

The House Auvryant employed mostly surface elves as slaves, and most were not kind to her. She could not help to overhear their gossip over the years, calling her a Drow whore, wondering at how she could ever have lowered herself to become the sexual plaything of the Drow who had killed her father.

Hilfy always ignored them as best she could. They hadn't been there at that battle. They hadn't known what it was like. Everyone had been massacred except for her. Some Drow in that battle would probably had killed her father sooner or later, the odds against them had been that bad. Just that in the heat and confusion of the struggle it happened to have been her Mistress, and with a lucky arrow shot at that.

Hilfy remembered blaming Vinlesu for years afterward, but as her training as a slave wore on she realized how stupid her attitude had been, especially if she had wanted to survive. Once her Mistress had stopped abusing her-and she realized now that most Drow wouldn't have-her last feeling of resentment evaporated away.

She lay back on her cot, closing her eyes and waiting quietly to go to sleep, trying not to think about what might be happening between her Mistress and Lord Jaelna at that moment.

Suddenly her eyes snapped open, memories of her early days as a slave bubbling up of their own volition. And she saw something about that time she hadn't noticed before. Vinlesu had stopped using Hilfy for her public spectacles shortly after her brother started sleeping with her all those years ago. She wondered now if that had been coincidence. Maybe her Mistress, being abused herself, suddenly realized what she was doing to her body slave.

She of course, could never be sure. Her Mistress had been very affectionate and close to her lately, but Hilfy knew that was one thing her Mistress would probably never talk to her body slave about.

Suddenly the low murmur of gossip on the other end of the room stopped. Hilfy looked up, hearing soft footpads slowly approach her. She looked up just as a large cheetah-spotted felinoid plopped down onto the cot next to hers. "Hilfy?"

She looked up, startled, then smiled brightly. "Kerran!"

She bounced up and gave the large felinoid an affectionate hug. She nuzzled his fur, as soft as she remembered. The creature at first look startled, then hugged her back. "I'm so happy to see you!" she said.

Over a month ago, Kerran had been forced to perform sexually with her in public in the tavern of the Illithid's Claw. But a few years before that, they'd had a brief but very pleasant tryst. After seeing him perform at the tavern, the Matron had made him her favored body slave. Even though he was part of the palace staff again, Hilfy had seen him only a few brief times in the weeks since the Illithid's Claw.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him. "Is the Matron displeased with you already?"

He shook his feline head. "Not at all. She was feeling ill of a sudden and did not want me to catch whatever might be troubling her, so she sent me here for the next few days. It was odd, though. She did give me specific instructions to bunk next to you as long as we both had to stay here."

Hilfy nodded absently. Despite her many years in service to the House Auvryant, she'd had very little truck with the Matron, except to occasionally scurry out of the way of the elder Drow and try not to be noticed.

Kerran whispered softly so that only Hilfy could hear, the other slaves keeping a good distance away from the intimidating felinoid. "And I am sorry to hear about your Mistress Vinlesu. The entire house is abuzz with the depredations that will be visited upon her by her brother. Most of the rumors I hear I would dismiss out of hand, if they weren't talking about Lord Jaelna."

The Wood Elf nodded, hugging herself. "I have never understood why he feels the need to be so cruel, especially to her. I remember when I first came here, my Mistress and Lord Jaelna seemed somewhat close, as brother and sister should be. But when they started sleeping together, everything changed. Lord Jaelna had been delighted at first, my Mistress less so. As things wore on, he became... discontent with her."

Kerran nodded. "To put it mildly, from what I hear. The Matron herself talked idly of it once, while we were...recovering in her bed. She called ordering Lady Vinlesu to Lord Jaelna's bed one of the worst mistakes she ever made. The two had been very close as children. The Matron thought they would enjoy their time together sexually. Such incest is not uncommon among the Drow, though such things are rarely talked about openly. But she in fact came very close to severely punishing Lord Jaelna when he began abusing Lady Vinlesu before he stopped on his own."

Hilfy hugged herself. "I've never understood Lord Jaelna. There is so much anger in him. But even so, what could have pushed him into such cruelty against his own sister?"

She was about to continue her musings when she saw Kerran's eyes grow wide, the skin under his thin facial fur turn ashen. A shadow fell across Hilfy from behind just as a hand with an iron grip encircled her arm. She turned, her heart skipping a beat as she saw Lord Jaelna's angry scowl just inches from her own face.

"You won't have to wonder any more, slave," the Drow said with a growling whisper. "Come with me."

He had a hooded cloak waiting for Hilfy and dragged her out of the palace and into the city beyond as soon as she was wrapped in it. He pulled her through the streets, up and down winding streets, never letting go of her arm. More than once he pulled her into dark shadows of various alleys, hissing for her to stay quiet for a long time, while he listened intently.

Jaelna finally pulled her into a run-down dive of a traveler's inn, not even a true inn, but a series of lichen-ridden caves hidden back from the main megacaverns. He shoved her into a small room, with damp, roughly-hewn granite walls. He sat her down on the bed, bidding her to be quiet once more, as he went to the doorway, weapons drawn, listening.

Hilfy sat quietly, trying to keep from trembling, knowing with a dread certainty she would never leave this room alive. She could think no other reason why he would drag her here, by herself and away from the protection of the palace. She tried to think of her Mistress, and of all the loving moments they'd had together.

The Drow warrior finally seemed to relax and turned toward her, sword in hand. She closed her eyes, determined not to cower or beg before him. She sat straight, the only betrayal of her fear her trembling lip.

Metal rasped on leather, and she opened her eyes to see the weapon nestled snugly in its sheath. Lord Jaelna looked down at her, scowling around a deep sigh. "We should be safe from my mother's spies here. And no, I didn't bring you here to kill you, slave." He looked away. "I know I am not as smart as the women in my family, but I'm not that stupid. Killing you would only drive a greater wedge between me and my sister."

"My Lord?"

The Wood Elf saw many conflicting emotions war with themselves in his dark expression, and despite his words, she still quivered a bit with fear. She had once been trained as a warrior, but that was decades ago, before her enslavement. Even if she thought it would be a good idea to fight a high-born Drow lord in a city full of his kind, she would still have no chance against such a bigger, stronger, and much more skilled opponent.

Finally, the male drew a weary sigh, and looked her in the eye. "You must never tell anyone what transpires here between us, not even your Mistress."

Her voice quavered, suddenly fearing things other than death. "I-I cannot betray her..."

He threw up his hands in exasperation. "I am not asking you to betray her! I'm not going to rape you or hurt you!" Suddenly, in a burst of molten anger, he kicked over a nightstand beside the bed, sending its porcelain contents crashing. "Dark gods! Why is this so difficult!"

"My lord, I do not understand. If you did not bring me here to-to kill me, or to use me, or to involve me in a scheme against my Mistress, then why..."

"How did you get my sister to fall in love with you?"

Hilfy blinked. Long heartbeats passed. She blinked again as she suddenly realized she was holding her breath. "She...she is in love with me?"

Jaelna rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Spiders of Hell, you dimwitted elf...Yes! Yes, she loves you! That has been obvious to everyone for quite some time, except, obviously, to you. How could you not see it? I just want to know how you did it."

Hilfy snapped out of her shock. Perhaps she had known of it, but simply had been afraid to acknowledge it. Even though her Mistress had seemed to have changed substantially in the past few years, Vinlesu had abused Hilfy for so long in the early years of her enslavement. It had been easier to believe that her Mistress' behavior was simply another passing mood, albeit a long-lived one. In the world she was now a part of, hope could be more painful than any whip.

For now, though, at the mercy of an angry and dangerous Drow Lord, it might just be best to deal with the situation at hand and talk to her Mistress later, if she got the chance. She turned to Lord Jaelna, wondering herself exactly how she did get her Mistress to feel the way she did. "My lord, I don't see why you would want to know such thing, unless..."

Hilfy drew a shocked breath as she suddenly knew. What the Matron had said to Kerran, what she had seen in her early days as a slave, how he was always so angry with her Mistress. There could the only answer. "You love her. You're in love with her!"

Jaelna turned away, fists balling. "Yes. No. I don't know anymore. At one time, I would have done anything for her. Anything at all. Now, I'm not so sure. I still feel...something. Maybe even something like love. But gods, she makes everything so difficult!"

Hilfy sat on the bed, unsure of what to say or do. The male Drow continued. "As you may have guessed, things were not always this way between us, slave. At one time Vin was just my little sister. I watched her grow up into a very beguiling young woman. Dalliances among family among the Drow are a diversion a number of us indulge in. I flirted with her often, and she seemed to like the attention, but was never interested in letting it go beyond that. I was actually content with that, and turned my attentions elsewhere."

He stroked back his long shock of snow-white hair. "Heh. My exploits in the taverns and brothels over the years grew pretty wild. My mother began to fear I would be a liability to the family or she feared I would squander my talent as a warrior. Or worse yet, that I would offer my services to someone other than her, lured away by carnal delights. That's when she ordered Vin to begin sleeping with me, to bind me stronger to the household with bait she knew I could not refuse."

"When I first slept with Vin, it was exquisite. There are no other words for it. Like a fine wine you've heard about all your life, and when you finally taste it, it actually exceeds your expectations. It would have been impossible for me not to love her. Even though affairs among family are common enough, there is an unspoken understanding that they must never go beyond the brief pleasure that they provide. But I did not care. I had the most exquisite female I could imagine, and did not want to let her go for anything.

"And she was very responsive at first. But as things wore on, she began resenting it. Resenting at being at my beck and call, resenting me being her bother, resenting that her time with me was not the fun, quick little affair she had hoped it would be.

"She began just...lying there. Just enduring it when we were together. Not moving, not talking, just letting me use her like she was a lump of flesh. Do you know what that's like, slave? Having the person you loved most in the world treat like just another unpleasant chore?"

The long-time slave bit her lip. "I...have some idea, yes, my Lord."

He looked at her, smirking. "I suppose you do. But you're a slave, that's to be expected. I was her brother. We played together for decades. I was her confident, her friend, her..." His voice cracked just a bit. "...her lover."

"And that's when you began hurting her," Hilfy said, shocked at her own boldness. Such an outburst at the palace would have gotten her punished for sure.

Jaelna hardly noticed, just nodding. "Yes. I tried asking her, begging her, talking to her, getting her gifts, doing things for her, but always-always-she just lay there. She would not even say my name. I just started getting so angry. So yes, I began hurting her, just to get some reaction out of her. But no matter what I tried, it never worked. And more, I found out some of the things I did...I liked. A lot. Especially on others who would actually react."

"But with my sister, it just got to be too painful for me, so I stopped. And when Sadra suggested that maybe I should bed Vin again in one of her tiresome schemes, I thought that perhaps enough time had passed that Vin and I could start over again." He scowled. "But as tonight showed, apparently not.

His tirade wound down, and they were both quiet for a long time. Despite herself, Hilfy only had one thought bubble up over and over in her mind: My Mistress loves me!

But she also regarded Lord Jaelna, so full of anger and hurt. "My lord, I am so sorry, I do not know how you can get my Mistress to love you. I do not even know how I got her to love me, if in truth she does."

She looked him directly in the eye, something she had never done in all her years as a slave of House Auvryant. "But I do know the one thing your sister needs from you above all else," she said.

Vinlesu made her decision: she was going to kill her brother.

She could have endured his abuse until he got tired of her again, she was sure. But when she'd gotten news that he had dragged Hilfy out of the palace and they had both disappeared into the city, something inside her broke. Not a single person in the palace doubted that they had seen the last of the red-haired Wood Elf. No more, Vinlesu decided. It was only a question of how and when, now.

She had just returned from searching the city for her body slave, desperate to rescue Hilfy, when she was told by one of the other slaves that her brother waited for her in her bedchamber. When she heard his hearty laughter through the closed bedroom door, she was already preparing a killing spell.

She threw open the portal, only to have the spell die on her lips. Jaelna and Hilfy were seated on her bed. To her utter astonishment, Hilfy was laughing along with her brother. "What goes on here!" Vinlesu yelled.

Her brothers' pervious jovial smile faded, his face becoming coldly serious. "Things need to change, sister."

"What have you done with my body slave!" she screeched at him. "If you've hurt her or bewitched her, Jaelna, I swear to the dark spirits...!"

He held his hands up placatingly. "Nothing like that, Vin, I swear! Look, I know I can be a bastard..."

Red hot rage erupted in Vinlesu, memories of the painful night before and the day spent terrified for her body slave very fresh in her mind. She spoke an echoing word that was ill-fitted for a mortal throat. Jaelna's dark skin flashed with eldritch light. He gurgled, his every muscles spasming before he collapsed to the rug strewn floor, gasping raggedly.

"You have no idea the kind of bastard you are!" Vinlesu screamed, towering over him. "You think you're strong? You think your little knives give you the right to just take whatever you want? I'll show you what real power is, as I send your soul screaming into the pits of Hell!" She began speaking the words of another spell, he hands glowing with mystical power.

Hilfy threw herself on her knees between brother and sister, arms outstretched. "Mistress, no!"

Vinlesu's eldritch words guttered to a stop a second before the magic would have reached its crescendo, her spell interrupted. The glow in her hands fizzled away. "Pet! Are you insane? I could have killed you!"

"Please, don't! He's your brother!"

Vinlesu stopped short, confused, her eyes narrowing. "How can you say that? You know what he's capable of, what he would have had done to you in that Tavern!"

Hilfy was on her knees before Vinlesu, tears streaming from her eyes. "You mean have me raped? Before a crowd of hundreds? Would he have been the first?"

The Drow sorceress blinked in surprise. "P-Pet... I..."

"If you kill him, it will tear your family apart. Worse, it will be something you will never forgive yourself for. I know you, Mistress. Your anger will fade, to be replaced with regret and guilt." Hilfy reached out and touched Vinlesu gently on her stomach, her trembling fingers on her navel through her robes. "Mistress, I beg you, remember where you this ring came from. And what I had to forgive to love you."

Vinlesu blinked back hot moisture. "P-pet?" The Drow slid to her knees before her body slave. "I-I was stupid, when I did those things to you. So stupid and arrogant, about so many things. I made so many mistakes. I never meant..." She began sobbing.

Hilfy took her Mistress up in her arms, her own tears mixing with Vinlesu's. They held each other, crying silently, Hilfy finding herself in the unusual position of comforting her Mistress.

Vinlesu's emotions finally wound down many minutes later. She shivered. "I am so sorry, Pet. If I could change what happened, I would."

"I know, Mistress. But you can't." She looked into her owner's eyes. "But you can listen to your brother."

Both women looked back toward the Drow male, who had recovered and had quietly moved to the bed, where he sat and listened. He saw them look at him, and he looked away, his face a cloud of confusion and hurt.

"How can things change, Pet? After everything that has happened between us..."

"Just listen to him, Mistress," Hilfy said quietly.

Brother and sister looked each other across the room for a long time. Jaelna's stood and kneeled along with his sister and her body slave. He looked away, fist balling as emotions warred within him. And then he said three words Vinlesu would never have imagined could pass through her brother's lips: "Forgive me, Vin."

Hilfy started awake into darkness.

She was nestled between two warm naked bodies. Her Mistress behind her, spooning her close as usual, arm protectively over her waist.

But to her momentary surprise, Lord Jaelna lay on her other side a few inches away on the expansive bed, snoring softly, his callused hand resting lightly over hers.

Then she remembered; they had all slept together.

After Jaelna's startling words, they had settled down, and her Mistress and her brother had started a very awkward conversation, their first true talk in years. It went on for hours. They occasionally had Hilfy fetch food and wine...and then startled her by inviting her to eat with them, and even letting her talk a little herself.

They talked a lot of their past, of their childhood growing up together, of adventures shared. And then, slowly, haltingly, they talked about what happened to them after their mother had ordered Vin to his Jaelna's bed.

There was a lot of yelling then, snarling and thrown furniture. Hilfy retreated into the bed, huddling against the far wall. Then, to her surprise, Vinlesu and Jaelna slowly, haltingly, calmed down again and began to seriously talk about what happened. More tears flowed, one even escaping down Jaelna's dark cheek.

The sibling even embraced awkwardly afterward, recalling their earlier, more innocent times. Hilfy breathed out gustily in relief. The point of danger, when they were at each others' throats, seemed to have passed. It appeared they could even start anew from this point, perhaps slowly rebuilding the bond they had once had.

"This is all well and good, Vin," he said finally. "But mother will still worry about my loyalty, and may still order you to my bed to ensure it."

Vin nodded. "I am aware, especially with Sadra trying to drive a wedge between us. Perhaps we should still give her the illusion that we are still together, but happily this time. It would rub her craw to see that her scheme has backfired. But you will have to sleep on the floor when you come to my quarters, Jaelna. I'm sorry, but it will be a long time before I'm ready to even contemplate taking you as a lover again."

Jaelna's fingers curled into fists, his hurt obvious, but then he slowly uncurled his hands and nodded. "Very well. I agree we should at least act like we are bonded strongly again. But it will be very frustrating, being in the same room with you and not being able to slake myself."

Before either could speak up, Hilfy offered, "I-I can sleep with Lord Jaelna, Mistress."

They both turned to her, surprised. Hilfy continued, "If he needs to sleep with someone while he is in your quarters, let it be me. I am only a slave, and will gladly serve my Mistress and my Lord. Pleasing many lovers was one of the things I was originally trained for, after all."

The Drow looked at each other and, surprisingly, it was Vinlesu who nodded in approval. "Very well, Pet. I think that is a very good solution. Jaelna is not very adept at hiding his feelings-I'm sorry, brother, but you are not-and it would be well for my mother's and my sister's spies to see him leave here in the morning looking genuinely satisfied."

She turned toward her brother. "But only if you treat my Pet well and be tender with her, Jaelna, and do not hurt her in any way. And I must be present, to make sure you do not go back on your word about this."

Jaelna thought about it for a few heartbeats, then dipped his head in agreement. "I will try, Vin. But tenderness is not something I was ever very familiar with."

Hilfy scooted of the bed and very tentatively lay her hands on his thick arm, smiling nervously. "If it pleases you, my Lord, I can show you..."

Things quickly turned sexual then, Vinlesu hanging back and allowing her body slave and her brother to explore their bodies and passions, perhaps as a test for her brother to make sure he could do it without the cruelty that so marked his reputation.

Awkwardness and hesitation marked their early touches, but Jaelna's natural aggressiveness soon asserted himself. He grew frustrated here and there as Hilfy reigned him in gently with verbal admonishments when he got too rough. It took nearly an hour for them to work to the point where Hilfy spread herself on the bed's expansive sheets, her sex well-licked, spreading her thighs and actually finding herself eager to feel Lord Jaelna's saliva-slick member enter her.

Watching them for over an hour, kissing, licking, caressing, sucking, had apparently become too much for her Mistress. Jaelna had been in between her legs, holding her hips up to him with his powerful arms, pumping madly in and out of her when Vinlesu had ripped off her clothes and straddled Hilfy's face. Soon Hilfy lapped hungrily at her Mistress' puffy, taut little nub, her fingers plunging in and out of the Drow's already slippery entrance. All three of them quickly moved beyond words, a powerful shudder working through them all as they all felt their climaxes rapidly approaching.

As Hilfy paused to gasp for breath she saw up through her Mistress's shapely dark legs that Vinlesu was leaning forward spontaneously and passionately kissing her brother, their moans escaping past dancing tongues.

Then Jaelna cried out, his peak on him as he clutched hard at her hips, his warm seed splashing deep inside her. His orgasm triggered Hilfy's own shivering, shuddering climax, and in turn sent Vinlesu over the edge. They cried out as one, their ecstasy echoing through the room. They had all collapsed into sleep soon afterward.

The memories of their moment of shared ecstasy must have made her stir, for she felt soft lips brush her pointed ear. "Awake, Pet?" Vinlesu whispered.

Hilfy nodded.

"You saved me from a horrific mistake today, Pet. You have done your Mistress a great service. I have never been prouder to have you as mine."

Hilfy blushed. "I am glad, Mistress," she whispered back.

"But you still defied me, Hilfy, when you stopped me from killing Jaelna. No matter how well intentioned, I must now punish you for that."

Hilfy swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. "O-of course, Mistress."

Vinlesu chuckled softly, kissing her body slave's ear again. "Your punishment is to love me forever, Pet. Can you do that?"

Hilfy giggled a bit in relief, snuggling back into Vinlesu's warm body, her voice nothing but submission and affection. "With all my heart, Mistress."

They cuddled and whispered to each other for a little while more, before they both fluttered their eyes shut in contented sleep.

Sadra looked down into the house's courtyard from a high parapet, watching her brother train again, his blades flashing madly through the air. She'd heard some disturbing rumors about him and Vin and Vin's body slave, that they were now a loving threesome, but he refused to talk about it at all. He had only been to Vin's quarters four times in the last two weeks, and their sister was definitely showing fewer bruises and far more smiles.

Sadra frowned. What had gone wrong? By all rights her siblings should have been at each others' throats by now, and she would have one, perhaps two, less rivals for her eventual bid for her ascension to the head of the House Auvryant.

Sadra spotted the signature long red hair of Vinlesu's body slave. The Wood Elf held a basket and moved to the side of the courtyard to the blooming nightblossoms, one of the few types of flowers that thrived in the dim lichen-light that permeated most of the Dark Kingdoms.

She was halfway through filling her basket with the dark blue petals when Jaelna stopped his kata and approached her. She straightened and they talked. Much to Sadra's frustration she heard soft shared laughter waft up to meet her ears. And Sadra's frown turned all the deeper when she saw Jaelna gently put a blossom in the elf's hair, only to have the slave blush and smile prettily.

"Something wrong, daughter?"

Sadra started and twirled around to see her mother walking to join her on the edge of the balcony. She bowed low. "Matron Auvryant."

Her mother pursed her lips, unimpressed. "My, such formality in our own house." She looked over the parapet. "Oh, yes, that little elf. She does seem to be making quite an impression around here lately. Jaelna seems to be the latest of my children who is quite smitten with her. You are not also planning on courting little Hilfy as well, are you, Sadra?"

"Mother!" the younger Drow spat, as if the Matron had suggested she sleep with a wyvern. She was the only one of the family who did not keep a body slave or sleep with any of the staff; she considered it beneath her when there were so many Drow lords and freeholds willing to share her bed. "I am just surprised by my brother, is all. He seems changed."

The Matron shook her head, sighing. "Not that changed. He was at his favorite brothel last night, and had to pay quite a bit extra for a harlot-slave he kind of 'broke.' Whatever is happening between he and Vin and her body slave, it has not quelched his appetite for cruelty. But at least he is now learning to keep those things out of the household. Even a wyvern knows enough not to soil its own nest."

The younger Drow could not help letting a contemptuous "hmph!" slip from her lips.

"Or perhaps that's what you wanted, Sadra?" her mother asked. "To have him or Vin mess the nest with blood?"

"You know that isn't true, Mother."

"Isn't it? I know that it was you, not Jaelna, who arranged all those favors for me. Quite an effective distraction, daughter, and you did do the House a good service with them. But was it really just a smoke screen to throw your brother and sister into bed with each other again, to see which one ended up murdering the other first?"

"Mother..."

"Silence!" The Matron hissed. Sadra gulped back whatever protest might have been on her lips.

The Matron looked down at the courtyard. Hilfy waved a good day to Lord Jaelna. The Drow male watched the Wood Elf retreat back into the house with a look of male longing both women knew all too well. "Be thankful for that elf slave, daughter. If your scheme had succeeded, you would not be breathing now. I am not stupid. No one moves against my house and goes unpunished, not even one of my own." She flashed very dangerous eyes at her daughter.

Sadra quavered, her hand resting tightly on her blade hilt. If she could strike fast enough, she might have a chance...

But no. Her mother was one of the most powerful sorceresses in the Dark Kingdoms. Even death might not be enough. It was always why Sadra had to move and plan so carefully if she were to grab what should rightfully be hers.

But her mother's shoulders relaxed, and she resumed watching her son begin his exercises again. "Yet, fortunately for you, your scheming this time resulted in bringing your siblings closer together than they have been for decades. Helped to correct one of my own worst mistakes. They may even turn out stronger for it. Jaelna, especially, finally seems to be finding some balance in his life."

The Matron turned toward her daughter. "I suggest you do the same, Sadra. Before you do irreparable harm to your family... or to yourself."

The matron walked casually away. Sadra watched her go, fuming as she turned back to the courtyard. Her nails raked across the marble railing of the balcony, barely containing her mounting rage.

Still, her mother had been right about one thing. Her siblings were growing stronger now, and worse yet, forming a true alliance. Very dangerous to her long term plans. She needed to find a way to drive them apart again.

Jaelna was still wearing that silly grin, even as he mimed slicing and cutting imaginary enemies. Sadra's lips drew a grim line. Perhaps it was time for that elf they both prized so much to change owners...

Sadra turned and left the balcony, another scheme already on the edge of her thoughts.


	3. Promises

Larn the Skin Shaper gasped and shuddered, pulling against his silken bonds, as his lover slowly, teasingly, lowered herself on to his engorged shaft. Her midnight-dark skin glistened with perspiration as she threw back her long snow-white hair, working her way down on him and sucking a sharp breath from her own sensations. Once she was fully impaled, she started her rhythm, swerving her hips in tight languid circles as she moved up and down along his length.

Sadra of the House Auvryant had been Larn's steady lover for a few years now. He adored how kinky and imaginative she could be, and how she loved to be forceful and in control-hence his hands tied securely to the bedposts. It was a game of bondage they'd enjoyed a number of times before.

Her hands slid over his heavily-tattooed chest. Larn was a specialist wizard among the Drow, a master at creating magical skin-markings. His own epidermis was covered over from head to foot with his own work, a colorful panoply of every kind of magical sigil and protective enchantment he could weave into his own body.

She bent down for a deep kiss, her soft breasts pressed against him, moaning loudly into his mouth. He enthusiastically darted his tongue back and forth between her soft lips, a mirror of his deep pistoning thrusts into her welcoming folds.

Sadra suddenly bit hard into his tongue, teeth slicing into his flesh. He yelped at the pain, garbling in confusion as she drew back and smiled down at him. He was about to say something when suddenly she stuffed a rag into his mouth and gagged him tight. A tight clenching of her slick folds around his shaft made him writhe and moan into the gag, offering little resistance.

Up until that point he just thought it was another one of her borderline sadistic sexual games, until she pulled from under the mattress a long knife etched with magical runes along its silvery blade. She spit his blood onto the blade and spoke a magical word of power. The dagger glowed briefly with sorcerous energy.

He cried out into the gag, pulling against his bonds, but he could not move or speak to make a spell work. Sadra just smiled down at him as he struggled wildly. "I'm sorry, Larn, sweety. I am. This is nothing personal. Just business." Her grin grew wicked. "Family, business, as a matter of fact."

Sadra plunged the knife into his chest, blood spurting high. Larn knew nothing after that brief, intense spark of pain except an eternity of darkness.

Three weeks later, Jaelna of the House Auvryant sat naked with his back against the polished-smooth basalt headboard of the expansive bed, satiny sheets and softly-worked wyvern-hide blankets caressing his skin. From three stories below wafted up the delicate strains of lyre music plucked by a blind human slave in the greeting room.

Jaelna sighed. Prostitutes were becoming such fragile things nowadays. The one he'd just used hadn't lasted even an hour with him before she broke. Well, her replacement had better not take too much longer. He was paying good money to be pleasured. Was it his fault that the whores did not have the endurance or tolerance to pain that properly satisfied him? And that damn owner had better not charge him for the bloodstains on the floorboards like he did last time.

A new girl entered the room, tall and lithe, wearing only gossamer white robes and a featureless mask. To his surprise, the girl was pure bred Drow, not another supposedly exotic pale- or brown-skinned slave. She pulled the door closed behind her.

Her hand passed over her mask, and the features blurred into that of a red-feathered hawk. Another pass, and her face became that of a moon-furred wolfling female. She raised her hand again...

Jaelna held up his hand. "Enough. I am not into magic-mask games. Take it off and strip."

"Are you sure my lord?" the girl asked with a mocking voice. "There is one guise I am sure you would quite enjoy."

A final pass of her hand changed the face of the mask to the features of a pale-skinned Wood Elf, framed by long, flowing flame-red hair. The male fumed at the implication, recognizing the voice and haughty attitude even through the mask. "Sadra!"

She removed the mask with a bemused chuckle and further surprised him by removing her silken robes as well. The wispy cloth puddled under her long legs, revealing her naked form. His eyes predictably lingered at the sweeping curves of her breasts and hips, drinking her in with typical male hunger. He had trouble forming the inevitable question. "What-what are you..."

"Relax, little brother," she said casually as she slinked up to the bed, noticing by his rising organ that he was doing anything but relaxing. "This is just a way to circumvent mother's spies, so we can talk in private."

"But..."

A single finger of hers glided up and down his straining shaft, causing a shiver of pleasure to run over his muscular body. "But I see no reason why we cannot have fun while we talk. I find myself curious to discover what there is about you that our little sister has kept you in her bed all these months without a single attempt to murder you."

Jaelna gasped as she curled her fingers around him and stroked softly. He'd had that done to him countless times before, but the fact it was his older sister masturbating him lent a surprisingly forbidden thrill to the activity. "Ah...things are not...are not as smooth as you may think between Vin and myself. We still fight often, even after all I try and do to please her. But she welcomes me occasionally into her bed still. She loves her Pet, but there are some things the elf cannot provide her..."

"Like a penis," Sadra offered.

"Yes." Drow Elves had lifespans measured in centuries, and cycled through sexual tastes and appetites a number of times over their long lives. Vin had had only an occasional dalliance with males over the last several decades, and was making up for her recent lack with gusto now that Jaelna had learned to behave and act gently with her. Of course Jaelna's favorite times with his younger sister was when she had her red-haired Pet with them in bed as well...

Sadra scratched lightly at his sack with her short nails, teasing up the length of his member, before gripping it and massaging it more vigorously. Jaelna tipped his head back and groaned. "It appears everyone wants to please little Vin nowadays," Sadra said with vinegar in her voice. "The Matron clearly favors her now, in a way she never did with either of us. Vin will likely become the next head of our house."

"I see nothing wrong with tha-ouch!" Jaelna winced as his sister squeezed his shaft too tightly.

"You are only saying that because you are not thinking ahead, brother. You think you will be able to keep sharing Vin's bed once she ascends to be the new Matron and takes our House name as her own? An affair with her older brother would not just be a naughty indulgence any more, but a full-blown embarrassment for one of her station. You will be a weakness she could not afford. She will drop you like a hollow dragon's egg."

"Maybe. But that won't be for decades yet. Besides, Vin may refuse mother. She was never interested in the position."

Sadra resumed working her brother, both hands on his length now. Jaelna exhaled heavily in ecstasy. "That is decades the Matron will have to groom her. She has already insisted that Vin accompany her to several functions and made a point of them being seen together. Vin may not be aware of it, but she's already being trained to take over. If we are to put a stop to it, if we can change the Matron's mind, it must be soon."

Jaelna was barely listening. All he could do was nod as beads of sweat dotted his forehead. He reached for his sister, intent on pulling her close and dispensing with her games. But as soon as his hand touched her bare, dark flank he yelped in pain and yanked it back. It felt like he had just dipped his fingertips into a hot fire. "Wha-what was that?"

Sadra laughed and kneeled up on the bed, looking down at him. "You can't do that without my permission. Its part of the enchantments." She reached behind her ear, and for the first time he noticed a small white tattoo of intricate design located there. She touched the lines on her skin and spoke a word of magic.

Bright lines of vibrant colors rippled down her naked skin. Swirls and whorls, sigils and wards and pictograms of wildly varying styles and hues shone over large swaths of her skin everywhere on her body. Jaelna goggled. "Sadra! What in the Dark Kingdoms is that?"

"Magical tattoos. As you may know I've been Larn's mistress for a number of years now."

"Larn? You mean the Skin-Shaper?" Jaelna winced. He'd heard just how much more torturous magical tattoos were to apply than normal skin markings. The pain was supposed to be excruciating; he knew more than one Drow with half-completed magical tattoos that would never be finished because the recipient couldn't stand the agony of it. To have endured being marked by so many spoke a great deal of Sadra's determination and tolerance for pain.

"That's him. He did a number of special favors for me in return for the best sex he'll ever have. He only finished the last of them a month ago."

"If they're magical, why haven't Vin or mother detected them?"

"They have I imagine, but I've always made a big show of wearing magical jewelry and such, and they probably thought the magic they detected was from that. Besides, its not unusual for Drow of our station to carry magical protection with us. I know you have some yourself. But mother and Vin will have no idea just how potent my countermeasures are now."

"Those tattoos would not stop mother."

Sadra tapped behind her ear, and the tattoos disappeared again, hidden behind the illusory glamour spell. "No. They would only be a minor impediment to her. But to a novice magic user like Vin, all my skin-inscribed wards and spell protection would be near-impenetrable while I'm breathing."

"Is that what you mean to do? Challenge Vin?"

The tall female elf chuckled, then slunk low on the bed and drew her long tongue from the base of Jaelna's sex up to the tip. "No, little brother. You are going to challenge Vin"

He cried out, arching his back. "I-I don't understand. Why would I...aungh!" Sadra dipped her head to lap at his sensitive orbs below his member.

Sadra looked up into his half-slitted eyes, kissing at his throbbing shaft. "We do not have to hurt her...much. Just show mother that she is unworthy of heading our house. Show how she'll fail when presented with a true challenge. Discredit and embarrass her."

"But Vin would hate me."

Sadra used her skillful tongue to lick at his tip like a kitten lapping a saucer of milk, causing Jaelna to begin thrusting up at her unconsciously. She pulled up, a thin string of moisture stretching from him to her smiling lips. "For a while, perhaps. But she's forgiven you before, and for things much more heinous. Besides, you'll even be saving her, in a way, from something she does not want in the first place."

Jaelna knew his sister was leading him along, lying to him to get her way, and not so subtly at that. But it was so hard to think of anything except what she was doing to his body at that moment. When she again took him completely into her mouth, his world was reduced to only the sensations of her hot tongue and eager lips. He knew-they both knew-that he would agree to practically anything as long as she gave him that kind of pleasure. He knew his own weakness, and cursed himself for it even as he let himself drown in the ecstasy of his sister's sexual attentions.

Sadra dispensed with formalities and straddled her brother, her legs on either side of his hips. She had to admit his body had always been very pleasing to look at, and felt just as good as she had imagined under her now, hard muscles rippling enthusiastically with raw male heat.

She leaned over him, her breasts on his hard chest, her entrance poised so tantalizingly at the very tip of his member. "Besides," she breathed into his ear with her sultriest voice. "If you don't challenge Vin, then I will. And what chance would she have against me?"

She plunged down on him, slipping him inside of her with one long, smooth stroke. They both cried out in rapture.

Sadra knew then-they both knew-that from that point forward her brother would do whatever she wanted of him.

Vinlesu started awake. She wasn't sure what had woken her, just a vague unease that something was wrong. She reached out, and to her surprise the bed next to her was empty. "Pet?" she called.

No answer.

It was very unlike Hilfy to be out of earshot. Vinlesu grabbed a robe, flung it about herself, and went in search of her body slave.

A few chambers over, she saw her slim, red-haired slave cutting fruit and placing it into a towel-lined basket. She sat at a broad exquisitely carved basalt table in one of the tapestry-lined auxiliary dining rooms. She dipped each slice in a small bowl of lemon juice to preserve it. The high born Drow sat down next to the pale Wood Elf on the broad stone bench, bumping her playfully with her shapely hips. Hilfy beamed a broad smile. "Good morning, Mistress."

Vinlesu leaned over and kissed her body slave on that special ticklish spot on her neck. The elf girl giggled. "You're busy unusually early, Pet."

Hilfy nodded. "I know you'll be off with your sorcery teacher today, Mistress. I wanted to prepare you a proper meal to take with you." She pared off a thin wedge from the dusky orange Devil's Finger root that grew in abundance in the Dark Kingdoms, hand feeding the slice to her Mistress.

Hilfy slipping the sweet pulpy wedge between Vinlesu's dark lips turned out to be a surprisingly sensuous act. A few more times and both females were giggling like girls.

Vinlesu sobered somewhat, but still smiled. "Hilfy, do you know what today is?"

The nude Wood Elf tilted her head, contemplating. "The thirteenth day of the month of the Warring Griffin?"

"Yes, but do you know what else today is?"

The elf girl slitted her eyes in a bemused smile and shook her head. "I am afraid not, Mistress."

"It has been thirty years to the day that you came into my service, Pet. Since I took you as mine."

"I'm glad then, Mistress," her body slave said, but with a strain in her smile. Vinlesu knew the day would dredge up mixed emotions in Hilfy. The anniversary of becoming Vinlesu's property also meant the anniversary of the day her father died.

Guilt still stabbed the Drow about that, as Hilfy's father had died by her hand-by an admitted stroke of luck-during a pitched battle on the surface. A great and prestigious triumph for her at the time, her first kill being a veteran elf patriarch. As Vinlesu had come to care for and then love her body slave in later years, her regrets about that act had mounted steadily and unrelentingly.

Hilfy had changed her. She recognized that more clearly now than ever before. Before her body slave had come into her life, Vinlesu had been selfish, self-absorbed, shallow, like so many other young, spoiled Drow elite. It had taken Hilfy' compassion, her strength, her love to show Vin just how hollow her life had been before. Hilfy had woken Vinlesu's capacity to love another, and with it had shown her what true strength could be.

Vin reached for the fruit in the basket, picked up a slice, and brought it to Hilfy's lips. Her Pet's eyes grew wide, but the body slave opened her lips automatically as her Mistress slipped the food in. Vinlesu did it a few more times, and Hilfy began to eagerly bite at the slices, making a game of this rare treat of her Mistress serving her.

On the fourth slice of Devil's Finger, Vinlesu smiled and drawled the fruit across Hilfy's red lips, laughing at the mock-sensual display. She said with a hint of amusement, "You know, Pet, I've read that humans have this odd tradition of celebrating anniversaries with gifts."

The slave nodded. "I have seen it myself when I was younger among my clan's human allies, Mistress. The humans lead such short lives that the passage of even five or ten years can be very significant to them."

"Well, to them an anniversary of thirty years would be no small achievement, I would imagine. And I think I would like to indulge in that human tradition for ours. I would want to give you a gift."

Hilfy was taken aback. "Mistress...I do not deserve..."

Vinlesu flicked her hand dismissively. "Its hardly unheard of for favored slaves to receive gifts, Pet. No more objections now, its settled. Name what you want. Anything within reason, and it will be yours."

The body slave thought for many long minutes, clearly unsure of what to ask for. Finally she brightened. "Very well, Mistress, if I must ask for a boon, I would very much like to see the sun again. To go up to the surface, and just bask in its rays again for a few minutes. To know of the world of my youth again, even if it is just for a brief time."

Despite herself, Vinlesu almost shuddered in horror at Vinlesu's request. A few minutes in the sun would leave almost any Drow temporarily blind, helpless, and in pain from sunburn. But that was the kind of world her body slave had come from.

Strangely, Vinlesu was confident that Hilfy would not try to escape. In their early years together, when Vinlesu had abused her for tavern entertainment and petty wagers, Hilfy very certainly would have bolted if given even the slightest opportunity, despite the slaver conditioning she had been put under. But their bond had grown incredibly strong in the past few years, and both of them had pretty much admitted how deep their feelings ran for each other.

The high born Drow nodded at last. "Very well. Before the next day's wyverns call, I promise you will see the sun."

The body slave could not help herself. She threw herself at Vinlesu, hugging her fiercely. "Oh, thank you Mistress! Thank you!"

"I am very happy to have any opportunity to make you smile, Hilfy."

The Wood Elf giggled happily at hearing the sound of her own name from her Mistress' lips. "But Mistress, if we are using the human tradition, I must give you a gift as well."

Vinlesu hugged the elf to her, bending down to kiss at the hollow of her collarbone. "Well, I think we can come up with some way for you to repay me, Pet. Some very pleasant way we will both very much enjoy."

Hilfy nodded. "Of course Mistress. But I should still try to come up with something on my own. The humans believe that the best gifts are surprises, so I should try and surprise you."

"Hm. Well, if that would make you happy, I see no reason why not." The Drow Elf stood and leaned over to kiss Hilfy affectionately on her red hair. "But I must go. I have to arrange for your outing, and my teacher, black hearted villain that he is, will be waiting. Good day, Pet."

"And to you, Mistress." The Wood Elf smiled in joy once more at the prospect of being able to see the sun again. "Thank you so much."

Later, Hilfy studiously swept the main vaulted entrance hall of the House Auvryant's palace, angling expertly around the huge marbles sculptures of Auvryant matrons and lords past. After decades of such duty, she moved through the space with maximum efficiency, herding dust before her like a shepherd moving her flock.

She was startled when she turned to see Jaelna looming before her, dressed in austere leathers and travelling cloak, looking grim. She bowed her head in standard slave obeisance, but allowed herself a friendly smile nonetheless. Lord Jaelna and herself had shared some very pleasant moments in the last few months, along with her Mistress. "May I serve you, My Lord?"

The Drow male handed her a dark hooded cloak. "Yes. Put this on. Your Mistress asked that I take you somewhere."

Jaelna's dour grimace made her hesitate a moment, but of course she moved to obey. It was her duty, no matter what else. But then she remembered what her mistress had told her earlier this morning. Could this be part of her gift? Was Jaelna to take her to the surface?

She held back a smirk as best she could as she wrapped the cloak about her. It would be just like her Mistress to make Lord Jaelna undertake such a chore, to further make sure that he proved his new-found gentility and devotion to his little sister. And of course Jaelna would be upset, as he would believe that servants should take care of such a task, not him.

As soon as Hilfy's hood was up, Jaelna led the slave out of the palace. She was zumming happily to herself, never noticing how tightly Jaelna gripped the sword hilt on his belt.

Vinlesu returned to the palace later in the day, exhausted. She yawned mightily as soon as the guards let her through the inner keep's massive entry doors. Master Grixx had been especially ruthless with his drills and her robes were spattered with the blood and viscera of a half dozen condemned slaves. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed, snuggle Hilfy close, and sleep for the next half-day.

She stopped short when her mother met her, the older woman's arms crossed and dark lips pulled into a taut grim line, just inside the main hall's vaulted doorway. "We need to talk, daughter."

The Matron turned and led her into the her own opulent private chambers and dismissed the slaves so they could have privacy. She handed Vinlesu a scroll. "This was delivered a few hours ago."

The younger Drow read the parchment over, then scowled. "Jaelna is challenging me? For ownership of my body slave and the succession of the House? Jaelna?"

The Matron nodded. "A formal, public challenge at that. He even asked House Mydea to bear witness. See the signature at the bottom?"

Vinlesu crumbled up the parchment. "That thick-headed... But I don't understand! Why would he do this? I thought he was... that we..." She growled and smashed the heavy sheet of paper against the wall. "Dammit, he's never had any intention of ever heading the house!"

Her mother crossed her reedy arms. "True. He's never had that kind of ambition-on his own."

Vinlesu's eyes narrowed, a snarl on her lips. "Sadra!"

"Yes. She's been evading my spies for weeks now, with greater than usual efficiency. A sure sign that she's been up to something. And more, one of her regular lovers, Larn of the House Rylith, hasn't been seen in all that time. He's a powerful artificer mage, a Skin Shaper. Its pretty obvious that she must have recruited him for something special."

"So you're saying this may be an opening move of something larger. That Jaelna is just her catspaw. But whatever the motives, mother, I have to answer this challenge."

The Matron nodded. Her daughter refusing such a public challenge would look like cowardice, and the House as a whole would lose face for producing such an unworthy offspring. In the unforgiving cutthroat politics of the Drow, such a scandal could be crippling. "I'm aware. The challenge said nothing of killing or blood, so I think it may very well be that they intend to simply humiliate you in defeat, discredit you enough from ever heading the House."

"That they never needed to worry about!"

Her mother looked away and pursed her lips. "Are you so sure about that, Vin?"

"What do you mean?"

The Matron shrugged. "Who else do I have to take over the House when I pass and walk the Land of Shades? Your siblings are either foolish or treacherous. If I asked you to succeed me, would you refuse?"

Vinlesu blinked rapidly, genuinely surprised. "I-I thought you would simply wait until one of us had children, and have one of them take over."

The Matron shook a weary head. "I don't think I will live that long. We both know Sadra's ambitions, and that's in addition to all the other houses that would like to see ours out of the way. One of our enemies will get lucky sooner or later. But you still have not answered my question."

The younger Drow swept the floor with her eyes, hugging herself. "You know I would not refuse such an important request from my honored Matron."

Her mother walked up and caressed her daughter gently along her dark cheek. Vin started for a moment; her mother hadn't touched her like that in years. Yet, she found herself leaning into it, smiling warmly. Since they had become adults, her mother always had to maintain her unyielding veneer as the cold and distant house Matron. It was a rare day that she could drop all that, even for a few moments, and simply be her children's mother. "And then my poor, smart, capable Vin would be miserable for the rest of her life, wouldn't she? If it can be helped, I will try and spare you such a fate. But know that if things come to a crisis point, you are the only real choice I have. I might as well destroy the house myself if either your brother or sister ascend to my position."

The elder Drow suddenly grabbed her daughter's shoulder with one hand and lay the palm of the other on Vinlesu's forehead. "Now hold still. I cannot interfere directly, but I can offer you some minor help." The Matron spoke a few echoing words of magic, and Vinlesu felt energy flow from her mother's hand into her body. She suddenly felt refreshed, all the fatigue and exhaustion of her long day draining out of her.

The younger Drow blinked, then smiled thinly. She clenched and unclenched her fists, feeling more well rested than she had in weeks. "Th-thank you, mother!"

The Matron tottered slightly, looking a bit tired herself, the source of energy from the spell quite clear. "Go gather your weapons and battle garments."

The matron followed in silence as her daughter went to her bedchamber, trailed from the door by the Matron's two burly body guards. Vin pulled out a sturdy iron chest, inlaid with intricate patterns etched into the cold metal. The younger woman growl-whispered a minor word of power as she turned the key, neutralizing the magical wards on the container even as she unlocked it.

She pulled out three magical daggers and a small pouch that clattered with dried finger bones. She fished out three and lay them beside the daggers. Her mother raised an eyebrow at her daughter as she recognized the sigils carved into the bones. "Interesting choice."

Vinlesu just shrugged as she stripped out of her traditional sorceress' robes and quickly and efficiently clad herself in tough riding leathers and cloak. "We both know that Sadra has spent considerable time and effort acquiring the means to counter our magic," she observed. Sadra hardly even disguised the magic gems she usually wore than held minor spirit wards and counter spells. "I simply thought it prudent to do the same, to make sure I had the means to counter her battle skills."

The Matron nodded, smiling thinly in pride. "Strategy and counter-strategy, just like I taught you both."

Vinlesu strapped on her battle knives and gathered her daggers and bones. She exchanged only a brief, formal bow with her mother before she left the palace to rescue her Pet.

Hilfy sat deep in the cave, against a well-worn stone seat carved into the rock wall that was probably centuries older than her.

They were in the Caves of Blood Strife, a series of intricate, interconnecting natural tunnels and ancient lavatubes used to train Drow fighters. The ceilings were high and arched, yet strangely did not echo any sound. The ground was strewn with uneven paths and random boulders, but large swaths of flat ground have been carved out here and there. They were in such a space now, waiting.

The Caves of Blood Strife were also a favorite place for Drow Elves with grievances to fight duels. All the switchbacks, turns, and confusing topography was thought to even out many otherwise uneven battles. Of course, the shadow-haunted tunnels also gave many hiding places for that favorite of Drow strategies, treachery...

Hilfy knew the moment she saw the tall Lady Sadra melt out of the darkness to talk to her brother that Jaelna had no intention of taking Hilfy to the surface. What exactly was going on she could not quite figure out, but if her Mistress's older sister was involved, it could not be good. Everyone in the household, and beyond, knew of Sadra's ambitions. It was often only a matter of speculation of how far the Matron's eldest child would go to try and accomplish them.

The Wood Elf started as Sadra approached her and Jaelna took off deeper into the caves. The dark-skinned Drow Elf towered over her. The body slave kept her eyes to the ground, in the well-practiced posture of submission. She tried not to let any of her anxiety show. Sadra, quite simply, scared her.

"Your Mistress will be here shortly," Sadra said. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, you're bait."

"Yes, My Lady," she said sheepishly, but her mind raced. Bait? Bait for what?

Sadra laughed. "You do play your role well. It's almost admirable how well you've manipulated my siblings this past year. If I had been in your position, I do not know what I might have done differently."

"Manipulated? But, My Lady, I have not..." Sadra smashed the slave across the jaw with an iron-hard fist. Hilfy went sprawling to the cave floor, the coppery taste of her own blood on her lips.

"Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. It doesn't really matter now. I had Jaelna go 'scout' so I could get this over with. Dear little Vin will be a lot more upset-and apt to make a mistake-if she sees you're hurt." Sadra kicked her hard in the ribs, making Hilfy curl agonizingly into a tight ball. Another kick in the side of the slave's face raised a dramatic welt along her cheek and ear.

"Oh, don't worry," the Drow Elf said as Hilfy lay there moaning in pain. "This is probably the worse you're going to be hurt during all of this. Once everything is over with I'll probably just let Jaelna have you to placate him. He was always easily distracted by the right toys. Of course, my blows will seem like gentle caresses after my sadistic dull-wit of a brother begins getting bored with you."

"I-I don't understand. I belong to my Mistress..."

Sadra squatted beside Hilfy, shaking her head and tch-tching sadly. "In an hour your mistress will be dead. And by the next wyvern-call, so will my mother. I will be the new head of House Auvryant."

Hilfy blinked up at her, idly wiping blood from her bruised lip. "That's not possible."

"Oh, but it is." Sadra tapped the tattoo behind her ear, revealing her skin full of magical wards. "My former lover Larn was a master Skin Shaper. These sigils and symbols were carved into my flesh with his most skilled sorcery. The magic that Vin wields that would otherwise be a danger to me will do little more than tickle now. She will come charging to your rescue, tire herself fighting Jaelna, and then I will step in and finish her off while she's exhausted and upset."

"But the Matron will not tolerate you killing your sister!"

"I have that taken care of. In fact, my killing Vin should upset her in the same way that kidnapping you will upset your Mistress. It will make her sloppy. Plus poor Larn had...treasures that will ensure me victory over my 'beloved' mother. Too bad he was so reluctant to part with them."

Hilfy huddled back against the cave wall, nursing her hurt face. Sadra sneered contemptuously. "Hard to believe you used to be a warrior. Not that you could have been much of one, to have ended up a slave so easily. Truthfully, it would have been better for everyone if you had just died with your mongrel father."

Hilfy grimaced, hurt and angry at the words, but ultimately chose to ignore the dig. "What treasures did this Larn have?"

"Oh, you'll see. It was difficult enough getting them, though. Larn had centuries to weave all sorts of magical protections into his tattoos. Very difficult to kill. The only way around all that protection was with a blood spell." The Drow pulled out an intricately carved knife from her belt sheath. "I had to have this special magical dagger crafted at no small expense, and it had to be anointed with his blood to penetrate his skin. It is practically the only weapon in the Dark Kingdoms that could overcome all of his magical protections."

Sadra slid the weapon back into its sheath and straightened, looking down at the Wood Elf. "Well, I think you look battered enough to evoke the appropriate amount of drama from Vin. Now let's get you set up..."

"Mistress!" Hilfy called from the small nook where her ankle was tied securely to a ring in the cave wall with a thick leather rope. Aside from her one appendage being tied, she was free to move about. Bait has to dangle and wriggle, Sadra had said. "Mistress, its a trap!"

Vinlesu calmly walked into the large chamber, breathing steadily, stopping only five paces away from where her brother stood with his sword and battle knife clasped casually in his grip. Hilfy stood ten paces behind him. She saw her body slave's bruises but found it in herself to keep her voice steady, even as she was seething inside at the violation of her Pet. "I know. Don't worry. I'll get you out of here." She narrowed her eyes at her sibling. "Why, Jaelna? What could Sadra offer you that could make you do this? After me and my Pet have been so accommodating of you?"

"Its complex, Vin." He laughed bitterly. "I know it must amuse you, to think that your dull-witted brother might have any kind of complex thought. But I saw very clearly what was going to happen as soon Sadra came to me with this latest scheme of hers. Its inevitable."

Vinlesu slowly pulled out her own blades. "Oh? And what is that?"

"That Sadra is going to end up killing you. Maybe not in this particular scheme. But eventually, she is going to have you removed so she can be unchallenged when she claims the House as hers. And I've seen some of the preparations she has made..." He shuddered, despite himself. "And she will succeed, Vin. I don't see any way she wouldn't, except if there was no chance you could ever be head of our House."

"Is that what this is about?" Vin sneered. "You're trying to 'save' me?"

Jaelna nodded, slipping into a battle crouch. "I am wearing magical wards, you know, and we both know I'm a far better fighter than you. I won't be slow and clumsy like that Ogre at the Illithid's Claw. I'd ask you to give up but we both know you won't do that. So I'll just promise not to hurt you more than I have to."

"Is that what you still say to your whores, brother? Do any of them actually believe you any more?" Her brow darkened. "Whatever happens between Sadra and myself happens. No matter what it was, you had no right to interfere. And you especially had no right to involve my Pet in all this. You forfeited all understanding from me in this as soon as she was hurt."

Three soft clicks of her tongue and from out of the shadows behind her bounded a trio of diminutive, half-sized skeletons. All wore leather armor and brandished two short swords apiece, grayish-white skulls leering out of leather skull caps. At first Jaelna thought that they might be the animated remains of children, but then he saw that the bones were too thick and their builds too stocky. Dwarf or halfling skeletons, then.

Vinlesu shouted for her clattering creations to attack, and they sprang into action. They ran to the cave walls and leapt off of them, launching themselves at different angles simultaneously at the Drow male. Jaelna, still staring at them dumbfounded, barely twisted out of the way in time.

Jaelna was the son of one necromancer and brother to another; walking undead were hardly an unusual sight for him. But he'd never seen or heard of resurrected skeletons moving with such speed or precision! His own blades flashed, countering and blocking the half-dozen lengths of steel whirling about him with loud clangs and sparks flying. He was not used to foes of their stature, much less three of them at once.

Hilfy had retreated up against the cave wall, watching the unfolding battle intently. She yelped in surprise when a flung dagger shuddered into earth at her feet. The Wood Elf looked up to see her mistress on the far side of the chamber nod at her, even as the Drow woman continued to circle outside the main melee, looking for an opening. Hilfy understood at once, grabbed the knife, and began to saw with furious strength at her bonds.

Jaelna was hard-pressed by his ghastly foes. But for all their speed they had little in the way of real battle skill. Jaelna had not always ignored the meal conversations over the decades between his mother and his sister. Skeletons may not have vital organs, but they still had two points of weakness: the spine and the hip bone. Destroy or severe either, and despite the animating energy the structural support of the creature collapses.

It took many long minutes of heated exchange with the blades for Jaelna to start turning the tide. A powerful lunge smashed through the vertebrae of the closest of the Halfling skeletons. The bone-corpse collapsed to the ground in a clattering heap, its arms flailing helplessly.

The two remaining creatures redoubled their attacks, and began somersaulting and leaping at random, throwing the Drow male off balance again. How could they be moving so fast! Sweat streamed off his face, his breath coming in ragged gasps, as he was challenged as rarely before.

His blade slammed into the hip bone of another of the skeletons, shattering it and taking it out of the fight. But it twisted forward at the last moment, entangling his sword's crossbar in it rib cage. The movement pulled Jaelna forward and off balance momentarily. He blocked the attack from the last skeleton with his battle knife, but for that moment he was stretched and vulnerable.

Vinlesu made her move, gliding into the midst of the combatants and smashing her brother hard across the temple with the steel hand-guard of her sword. Blood and spittle flew from his lips as he staggered to the side, blades up in front of him as he tried to shake the blow off.

Vinlesu held back the last of her servitors as she spoke a word of magical power and flung the spell at Jaelna. His entire body glowed for a second, but Vinlesu saw a pendant under his shirt glow even brighter, pulling the glow from the spell into itself. The anti-spell ward he had boasted about. Still, enough of the spell's effects had gotten through, and Jaelna swayed drunkenly in pain from the powerful magical assault. Vinlesu was able to openly walk right up to him and slam the pommel of her sword across skull again. He spun and dropped to the cave floor like a felled tree, unconscious. She fished out his warding stone, a pewter medallion on a chain around his neck. She cast a sleep enchantment on him to make sure he remained out for as long as she needed.

Vinlesu told the last of her servitors to drag him to a corner out of the way and stand guard while she ran to Hilfy. The Wood Elf had just finished cutting through the heavy rope and ran into her Mistress' loving embrace.

"Are you okay, Pet?" Vin cooed, breathless from her exertions.

Hilfy nodded, hugging tight. "Yes, Mistress. Thank you so much! But those skeletons. How did..."

"Master Grixx may be a vicious knot of gristle, but he is there for his students when they need him. I created the skeletons, but he lent them special enchantments to put them on a more even par with whoever they would fight. I still owe my teacher a major debt for that. Knowing that perverted old horror, I can imagine how he'll want to collect..."

"Mistress!" Hilfy said, straightening suddenly. "Lady Sadra is here! She is the one who hurt me, not Lord Jaelna! She plans on attacking you here in the caves!"

"I'm aware. Its a very classic kind of strategy for something like this. Use someone close to your target as bait, then use a flunky to test your target's capabilities and maybe wear them out."

A soft rippling laughter echoed through the caves. "Very good, Vin. You always were a good student. Probably why the Matron favors you so. But good students never exceed their teachers, they only become pale copies of them."

Vinlesu pushed Hilfy roughly aside against a cave wall, perhaps hoping the sloping vault of hard rock would afford her body slave some modicum of protection from whatever Sadra had planned.

From out of the shadows of the far cave entrance a tall armored figure emerged. "It is we troublemakers who are the ones who show true initiative, after all," Sadra said haughtily.

Hilfy and Vinlesu both gasped. The armor was of the style worn by the Empress' Guard. It was a far cry from the bulky, heavy armors humans wore. It was keenly articulated in a way only Drow artificers could manage, and allowed easy motion almost as if the wearer had no armor at all. Yet it was forged of overlapping plates of dark silver-black metal alloy, as hard as inch-thick steel plate but three times as thin and light. For all its bulk, Sadra would be impeded by it only slightly, It covered the tall elder Drow sibling head to toe. Only the pale fire of her bright blue eyes showed through the small slitted visor.

But most shocking wasn't the armor but what lay sown into its surface-strips of black Drow skin, spiraling over its surface, glowing with bright, intricately carved tattoos. Over the faceplate stretched the stylized face tattoos of Larn the Skin Shaper, his face now forever locked in a lipless, wide-mouth scream.

Hilfy retched in revulsion. Vinlesu herself could only work her mouth soundlessly in horror before she finally found her voice again. "Dark spirits! Sadra...what-what have you done?"

"Seized an unprecedented opportunity, Vin. Larn had some of the most powerful and intricate protective spells in the Dark Kingdoms woven into his skin by two centuries of his own work. And I thought, why should he horde all that to himself, when I had such better uses for it? So a torrid affair and the skillful use of a blood-enchanted dagger later, all his protections are now mine."

Sadra pulled her sword and battle knife, her mocking laughter echoing softly behind her faceplate and its sown-on mask of Elven flesh. "Come, dear sister, try it out. You know you want to."

Vinlesu blinked, coming out of her trance. She ordered her remaining ghoulish skeleton to attack while she readied a more powerful spell.

That strategy proved a dismal one. The skeleton's blade shattered into a hundred fragments the moment it contacted Larn's skin on the armor. Sadra just casually brushed her gauntlet against the undead automaton and the creature collapsed into a cascading pile of dust, its animating magicks instantly neutralized.

Sadra could have pressed her advantage then, as Vinlesu was only half way through calling her spell, but didn't. She simple stood and waited patiently. Vinlesu could almost imagine the smug smile under her elder sibling's face plate.

Sadra hadn't been the only one anticipating a confrontation among her siblings for years. Vinlesu too had contingencies in place, though never in the darkest visions for herself did she imagine going to Sadra's psychotic depths. Making sure Hilfy was squarely behind her, she ripped a blood-stained jewel from her necklace and, speaking a word of power, it shattered in her hand. A wave of coruscating black anti-energy exploded outward from it, washing over Sadra with enough necromantic power to kill an elder dragon.

It was her attack of absolute last resort, a single enchantment she had spent the better part of the past decade preparing, adding to it bit by bit, week after week. Nothing living would be able to withstand contact with the dense wave of necromantic energy.

Impossibly, the Oblivion Wave sparked and fizzled to nothingness as soon as it touched Sadra's skin-augmented armor. Her sister chuckled in triumph. "Is that the best your little magic can do, Vin?"

Sadra's blade lashed out lightning-fast, cutting a shallow gash from Vinlesu's breast to her shoulder. The younger Drow cried out and fell back, hand over the wound. Hilfy was on her feet in an instant by Vinlesu's side. "Mistress!"

"Draw your weapons, sister," Sadra said steadily. "Just because you have to die today doesn't mean you should die poorly. Honor our house."

Vinlesu glared at her armored foe, grimacing at the sharp ache in her chest from the wound. It was a fool's challenge. Even fully armored, Sadra could far outmatch her in speed and skill. But what choice did she have? Her magic, even her most powerful spell, had proven worthless. All she had left were her weapons. Slowly, methodically, she drew her sword and her battle knife from their scabbards with blood-soaked fingers.

"Mistress!" Hilfy called. "Please don't..."

"She will kill me anyway, Pet. At least this way I have some chance." She unceremoniously pushed Hilfy away from her as she assumed a fighting stance with her weapons.

"Keep believing that sister," Sadra said as she slid into a battle-crouch. "Maybe it will even bring you comfort in your last moments."

They rushed each other, swords and battle knives flashing as the weapons crashed together. An intricate blur of thrust, slash, parry and block followed. Vinlesu was hardly inexpert with the blades. Like most of the Drow elite, she had received special training when she came of age and had done her best to keep up the skills.

But Sadra had specialized with weapons, honing her talents for decades now. Despite all of Vinlesu's desperate and at times vicious attacks, she quickly realized she had no hope of penetrating Sadra's defenses. She drew back, gasping from the exertion, sweat streaming from her dark brow.

Sadra's voice was steady and unhurried. This was at best a mild workout for her. "Not bad. You're better than I thought you would be. I wonder if mother will be even as much a challenge?"

"You can't seriously think you can challenge our Matron..."

"With this armor, dear sister, I could challenge nearly anyone in the Dark Kingdoms. Mother's spells may be more powerful than yours, but they will have the same effect against poor Larn's carefully crafted skin wards. And without her magic, and so many decades out of practice at true fighting, she will be even more helpless than you. Plus I imagine she will be especially upset when I send her your head as a direct challenge. So don't fret too much when your soul arrives at the Land of Shades. Dear mother will be there soon enough to comfort you..."

Suddenly Hilfy launched herself at the tall Drow from behind, tackling her across the midriff and throwing her off balance as the Wood Elf clutched desperately to the armor. "Mistress! Strike now!"

"Pet!" Vinlesu cried, hesitating for a moment out of panic for her body slave. Sadra snarled and batted the Wood Elf away with a fist clenched tight around the hilt of her sword. The red-haired slave was sent sprawling to the uneven cave floor.

Vinlesu saw an opening, however. If she could strike at a seam of the armor that Larn's skin wasn't covering, she had a chance. She lunged at her sister while she was half-turned away, aiming her thrust at one of the armor's striated neck joints.

Sadra didn't even bother to bring any of her weapons around. All she did was shift her form a few inches to the side to let Vinlesu' long blade skim against the black stretched skin on the armor's shoulder. The tempered steel of the blade shattered like so much brittle glass.

Sadra turned and launched into a flurry of attacks against the younger Drow. Vinlesu suffered a dozen cuts and bruises in just a few heartbeats as her sister pressed the merciless attack. Finally, the tall Drow slammed the hand guard of her sword hard against Vinlesu's jaw, sending her younger sister tumbling, dazed, to the cave floor.

"I guess this is where it ends, Vin. I'll tell everyone you put up a valiant fight, though truthfully you were hardly a challenge." She raised her sword for a final blow.

A blur of movement behind Sadra, a muffled thunk, and suddenly the elder Drow stopped short, a tortured gurgle echoing in her armor. "Get away from my Mistress!" someone screamed. Through Vinlesu's blurred vision, she saw Hilfy withdraw a blood-drenched dagger before plunging it again into the back of the Drow warrior with all her strength. The Wood Elf's features were knotted up into an uncharacteristic rictus of hatred.

Sadra lurched forward, dropping her weapons from her numbed fingers, gurgling in disbelief as Hilfy landed a third stabbing thrust. "H-how?" was the only thing she could manage to utter, as her hand settled onto an empty dagger sheath at her hip. "No..."

With a fourth blow, Sadra crashed forward onto the rocky floor. Hilfy jumped on her back, overtaken by a blood frenzy, stabbing her over and over again. Vinlesu noticed a faint glow coming from the blade, marking its magical nature as it sliced repeatedly through sorcerous skin, armor, and flesh alike with ease.

Vinlesu finally recovered enough to get behind Hilfy and slowly drag her away from the corpse of her sister. The naked Wood Elf still slashed away at the air, foam flecking her mouth. "Get away from...not my Mistress! Bitch!..."

"Pet!" Vinlesu said. "Pet, please. Its over. You did it. How, I can't guess, but you did it."

Hilfy's movements slowed, then finally stopped altogether. She dropped the knife and turned to hug her Mistress fiercely. Vinlesu found herself hugging back just as powerfully, never realizing how wonderful a feeling it could be just to hold her beloved so close.

"Mistress!" Hilfy said, tears trickling form her eyes. "I couldn't let her hurt you. I just couldn't!"

"It okay Pet," Vinlesu cooed, finding herself trembling. Her own death had been so close...

"Lady Sadra-that bitch-showed me the dagger she used to kill Larn. She said there was a blood spell on it, created from Larn's own blood. The only weapon that could penetrate Larn's skin. So when I jumped her earlier, I grabbed it from her belt without her noticing, and..."

Vinlesu smoothed Hilfy's hair and kissed her forehead tenderly. "Well done, Pet. A good strategy. I forget sometimes that you were being trained as a warrior when I first acquired you."

"Mistress, I am just so glad you're alive!"

"As am I, Pet." Vinlesu's head continued to clear, and she focused on the prone corpse of her sister, blood leaking copiously out of the joints in the armor. "Except...oh, gods, Hilfy, what have you done?"

"Mistress?"

"You've killed a Drow elite. And you a slave...gods, Pet, they'll kill you by slow torture. You'll be months in the dying." Only Drow were allowed to kill Drow. To most of Vinlesu's kind, the lesser races were little more than animals. And like any animal, Hilfy would be a rabid cur that would have to be put down for daring to attack one of her masters, no matter the circumstances. Other Drow would not see the act as Hilfy saving her Mistress's life, but as a slave seizing an opportunity to interfere with a duel and exact revenge on one of her tormentors.

The Wood Elf looked even paler than normal. "But, Mistress, we don't need to tell anyone. We can just say you defeated her, grabbed her dagger."

"No, Pet, you don't understand. Our Matron is a master necromancer. Sadra for all her treachery was still her daughter! She will visit the Land of Shades herself to ask Sadra's spirit what happened."

"But...but..."

Vinlesu shook her head. "There is no way she won't be able to find out what happened, Pet. And in the Drow tradition, she will exact vengeance on her daughter's killer."

Hilfy blinked, the fear very evident in her eyes even as she set her jaw defiantly. "It...it was still worth it, Mistress. You are alive."

The Drow shook her head. "I can't allow it, Pet. There must be another way."

They held each other quietly for a long time, lost in their own thoughts. Finally Hilfy looked up into her owner's eyes. "If there is no way to escape such a fate, Mistress, then please, kill me quickly now and be done with it. I hope I have at least earned that mercy."

"I..." Despite herself, almost unconsciously, Vinlesu's trembling fingers settled on the hilt of her battle knife. A quick plunge into her Pet's heart, and it would be over in seconds. Better that than the months Hilfy would spend slowly being flayed alive, her skin and flesh stripped from her layer by layer and fed to her, kept breathing by spells that would extend her life but intensify the pain...

A river of tears flowed down Vinlesu's cheeks. Her fingers clenched the handle of her knife so hard her knuckles turned white. "P-Pet..."

Hilfy slid to her knees on the cold stones, bowing her head, her long red hair draping over her eyes. "My heart and life will always be yours, Mistress."

Vinlesu slid the blade out of its sheath and held it in quivering fingers. Hilfy's form blurred with her tears. How had things come to this, where she was forced to end the life of the one person who had made waking up every day worth the effort?

She looked around desperately, and saw them prone form of her sister's armored corpse. She thought furiously, then dried her eyes messily on her sleeve and helped her Pet to her feet. "If your life is mine, Pet, then I choose to have you live for a long time yet."

It was a long and sweaty process, both removing the armor from Sadra's body and in turn removing the enchanted skin from the armor. The skin, which Vinlesu had expected to be stiff and leathery, was still supple and soft, as if it had just come off of Larn's fresh corpse. No doubt that was due to the potent magic in Larn's tattoos. They were probably designed to preserve his body as well as protect him from external harm.

They rolled the skin fragments into a single bundle and stuffed it into a makeshift sack made from the still-slumbering Jaelna's cloak. Vinlesu would investigate the skin later, determine what use it could be, if it was really as powerful as Sadra claimed.

Putting the armor on Hilfy was another near-exhausting chore. It was not particularly heavy, but like with most elaborate armors, it had been custom built for its wearer, in this case a broader-shouldered, bigger chested female who was also taller by almost a head. They'd ended up slicing up a lot of Sadra's clothing and Hilfy's travel cloak to stuff in-between the joints so the metal plates did not droop awkwardly in place.

They were just about to secure the helmet when Hilfy spoke quietly. "Mistress, stop."

"We have to do this quickly, Pet. We've already been gone longer than most challenges take. The Matron will become suspicious and send her spies..."

"Come with me, Mistress."

Vinlesu stopped, surprised. "What?"

Hilfy sucked her lip, her eyes brimming with moisture. "Please, Mistress. Even if this works, we cannot know if we will ever see each other again. How you feel-how we both feel-has been apparent for some time now. If I cannot return with you to the Dark Kingdoms, then come with me. I know sometimes you weary of the Drow world and all its duplicity and betrayals and harshness. Come with me, and we can be together still."

Vinlesu worked her mouth silently, then shut it as her thoughts wheeled wildly in her head. Could she truly contemplate such a thing? She had thought of travelling the Surface world anyway, once her apprenticeship to Grixx was over, and maybe never coming back. The thought was tempting, even if it meant she would be immobile half the time wile the sun was out. But she and her Pet would be able to see so much, experience so many exciting new things together...

But she violently shook her head, tears threatening again. She had no idea she could shed so many. "N-No, Pet. I cannot. I ache to be with you, gods, I do, but I have my duty, to my family and my House." She clasped Hilfy's head gently in her hands and leaned them both together, forehead and noses softly touching. With the armor on Hilfy, it was one of the few types of intimate touch Vinlesu could manage.

"Then let me stay. Even if it only a day before I'm caught, at least..."

"No! Pet, you must go. You'll die if you stay. This will be my last order to you as your Mistress, Hilfy, so listen carefully." She looked deep into Hilfy's eyes. "You are to stay alive anyway you can. You are to live, be free and well, and have a long and happy life."

Vinlesu removed her battle knife from her sheath, pulled her leather jerkin up, and flashed the blade across her navel. With a small splash of blood Vin's ruby navel ring fell into her free hand. She placed in her Pet's palm and curled Hilfy's fingers around it. "This is yours, Pet. I've...held it for you long enough."

Hilfy nodded, her own cheeks running over with moisture form her eyes. "Mistress..."

"I am your Mistress, no longer," She swallowed hard, trying to tamp her emotions. "You said this morning that you wanted to give me a gift. You've given me my life, but I want one thing more. I want you to say my name. I want to hear it from your lips at least once."

The Wood Elf nodded shallowly. "I love you, Vinlesu."

"And I you. Now please, go, and live for me."

Before any other words could be spoken, the Drow straightened and lowered the helmet over Hilfy's head. If she had said anything more, she would have lost the nerve to send Hilfy away completely.

They exchanged one last, longing glance, and then Hilfy turned and was gone from the cave.

"Sadra is gone?" the Matron asked, visibly upset.

They stood in the palace's broad, ornately decorated reception chamber, as Vinlesu's mother sat on her large stylized leather chair where she usually received guests visiting the family's ancient abode. According to the servants Vinlesu had talked to as she entered the palace, the Matron had been alone in the chamber for hours, tense and upset.

"Y-yes, mother, I'm afraid she escaped to the surface," Vinlesu said with a barely-controlled quaver in her voice. "She was badly wounded and humiliated from her defeat, and said she could expect no mercy from you. She-she is lucky I let her keep breathing at all, after what she did to my Pet."

"So you've said," The Matron said with lips drawn in a deep frown. "I am sorry to hear about Hilfy. I know you were very fond of her. Is that bone really all that is left of her?"

Vinlesu clasped her hand around the small fingerbone. Both sorceresses could feel the remnant life force pulsing from within. She tried hard to retain her composure in front of her mother, but a soft snuffle escaped her lips. Her mourning for her lost Pet certainly wasn't hard to fake, still fresh after only a few hours. "Yes. Sadra was incensed when my Pet interfered with our duel, and struck her fatally. When everything was over, I could not stand the thought of never having anything of Hilfy ever again, so I used the reanimation spell to trap what I could of her life force, so I could have at least some small a part of her with me still."

"I see." The Matron's frown deepened. "Very well. Go, Vin. Mourn your Pet. We need to speak of a great many things, not the least is the future of our house. But for now, I think it would be best for both of us if we both were alone."

Vinlesu looked at her mother askew but didn't pursue the odd statement. The finger bone clutched tightly in her hand, she turned and left without another word.

As soon as her youngest daughter was gone, the Matron ordered all the servants and slaves to leave the chamber immediately. When the last one left she slunk into her opulent chair and let out a loud, pain-filled sob.

Vin was still an apprentice, and couldn't know that a much older, much more skilled sorceress like her mother could recognize individual life forces, even when they were trapped in magical artifacts. Vin would never suspect that her mother had known she was lying about Sadra from her very first sentence. That the Matron could sense the remnant of her eldest daughter's life force in that bone.

But what could she do? If she acknowledged it, she would have to acknowledge that Vin had killed Sadra, that one of her daughters had murdered the other. That could not be tolerated. Despite the frequency of it in Drow society, letting the murder of a family member go openly unpunished was the equivalent of endorsing it.

But the Matron also knew that it was not Vinlesu who had been the perpetrator here, that if Sadra had met her end at her sister's hand, she must have provoked Vin beyond all reason. Vin should not have to suffer any more for the sins of her sister. It was best that she never suspected that her mother knew the truth, and that Vinlesu's version of events be the only one that would be officially announced.

It did raise the question of what happened to Vin's favored Pet, of why little red-haired Hilfy had not returned with her Mistress. Perhaps she had died as Vin said, or Vin had let her go, to escape to the surface. Either way, she would not be present to contradict Vin' story to anyone.

Tears rolled down the Matron's dark cheeks. Sadra had turned into a bitter, treacherous serpent at the heart of her family, she knew. But she had still been the Matron's daughter, and the elder Drow could still quite clearly remember holding the tiny baby Sadra in her arms, rocking her to sleep, helping her get dressed, showing her how to play with her first practice sword...

The Matron cried bitterly for a long time.

Three nights later Vinlesu returned from a very unproductive day of training with Master Grixx to find a young blond Wood Elf sitting quietly on her bed. The Drow was still hurt and exhausted from her battle, but most of all, the void in her life left by Hilfy's departure seemed bottomless. She felt hollow and numb, at a distance from everything, like an actor in a play about her life rather than the person who was actually living it.

Shards of Darkness, was Hilfy really gone?

Vinlesu regarded the the naked female elf with an empty expression. She could guess the creature's purpose here. "What is your name, slave?"

"Jalithria, Mistress. I am a gift from your great Matron. I am to serve any need you may have."

Vinlesu shifted uncomfortably with how closely the slave's features resembled Hilfy's. No coincidence why her mother had chosen this one. "Go sleep in the slave quarters tonight. Come back tomorrow when the wyverns call and we will discuss your duties."

The girl rose and bowed. "Yes Mistress." She gestured toward the nightstand. "Your great Matron also sent a scroll and a package for you. She said it was of importance, but not of immediate pressing need. That you should read it when you could."

"Very well. Leave now." Jalithria bowed again and did as she was bade.

Alone, Vinlesu looked over the small vial of bluish liquid attached to the parchment note, written in her mother's hand. It said, in simple terms, that the potion in the vial would make sure she was fertile for three days, and that she needed to sleep with her brother at least once more.

Vinlesu saw the implications right away. The Matron knew that Vin would now never have the stomach to head the household, despite what her mother may wish. And Jaelna, even if he overcame the prejudices of Drow society and became one of the few males that could head a house, would always be too weak and distracted by his addictions and vices to be effective.

If the current heirs available to the House Auvryant were unacceptable, the Matron would just make sure that another would be provided. One maybe she and her mother could raise and groom correctly for the task, learning from past mistakes. And one unmistakably of pure Auvryant blood.

After drinking the bitter fertility potion, she went to her brother's quarters. Best to just get it all over with.

Jaelna was surprised to see her, but Vinlesu had bade him to silence as she did her duty with him. Afterward, as she dismounted, she slapped him hard across his face and warned him to stay away from her and not speak to her again unless absolutely necessary. He had been complicit in what had happened to Hilfy and Sadra, an act that he would be many years living down with his mother and sister. He raised no hand against her for the assault. He only looked after his younger sister with a sullen frown, longingly, as she walked away from him a final time.

Soon after, with the wyverns about to call, Vinlesu plopped heavily onto her bed, laying out on its generous silken folds. She turned over and breathed deeply. She could still just barely detect Hilfy's scent on the pillows and sheets.

Tears returned, but this time with a thin smile. It had been three days now, and no sentry of the Drow had reported intercepting any escaped Wood Elf slave. Hilfy had made it, she was sure. Vinlesu imagined she might have even made it to the surface before the wyverns called the day after their confrontation with Sadra.

"I kept my promise, Pet," she said quietly. "That and more. You're free."

She lay her dark fingertips on her abdomen, where her brother's seed now mixed with her own, sighing. She wondered at how swollen her belly would get in just a few months. "I only wish I could say the same."

Two days earlier, a lone figure emerged from an obscure cave in the Ironknife mountains. Gasping, she flung the highly stylized helmet from her head, bouncing it high onto the hard frost-laden ground and scrub grass.

Hilfy gulped desperately for air, her hair matted with sweat. She had climbed the equivalent of a mountain up from the Dark Kingdoms to reach the surface, all in the armor lest some stray Drow agent spot her. She had been very careful to follow Vinlesu's directions, making her way through all the winding tunnels and past numerous sentries. A few Drow pickets had spotted her, but did not challenge or even speak to her as she tromped past. She wore the concealing armor of an Imperial Guard, after all, and who were lowly sentries to challenge one of the Empress's hand-picked elite?

But now she stood blinking at the reddish orb of the rising sun, hand shading her eyes at the source of light, the brightest she had seen in three decades.

Hilfy had no idea exactly where she was, as far as surface geography was concerned. But her Mistress, in her wisdom, had given her three assets that would serve her well to start a new life here. The first was the elite Drow armor she wore, only slightly damaged, that she could sell for enough money to take her anywhere she wanted to go. The second was Sadra's blood spell dagger, the one the eldest Auvryant sibling had used to kill and flay Larn, which could help protect her from threats mundane and sorcerous alike. The third was her father's ring, still clutched in her gauntlet-clad hand, which would help her re-establish her claim to her birthright among her old clan.

Hilfy sunk to her knees, tears streaming down pale cheeks glowing crimson with the dawn sunlight, sobbing both for what she had lost, but also all she had just gained. "Thank you Mistress," she said quietly to the cold, snow-swept mountains around her.

Eventually she dried her tears, stood, and began the long trek down.


	4. Full Circle

Silvery moonlight streamed through the dark canopy onto the tall standing stone. Sculpted wood and earthwork shelters were silhouetted a short distance away, marked with many of the same mystical sigils as the stone at the broad clearing's center. A Druidic Grove.

By the standing stone waited a lone figure, the long dark robes of his office shifting in the nighttime breeze. He sighed heavily and glanced over his shoulder. "I know you're there, Atela."

The large felinoid melted from the shadows. Her black-striped white fur practically glowed in the pale illumination, interrupted only by the tight halter and loincloth she wore. She narrowed emerald eyes at him. "How'd you know it was me, Kren? A buck in his prime shouldn't have noticed me there."

"As you should know, initiate, our magic makes us one with the earth and grass. Unless you can learn to walk on air, I will always be able to feel you approach."

Atela crossed her arms and grumped. "You are no fun."

"We are not here for fun. Report."

She tapered her triangular ears back. "He's dead. I'm not sure what the hell got to him in that benighted place, but I heard his scream suddenly cut short, smelled his blood-lots of it. He lasted a little longer than the other, but he's dead all the same. Murgen and Wiam with him."

Kren rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation. "As I expected. The Council will just send another and he, too, will end up just as dead. I only hope more of our foolish brethren don't end up dying with him."

"Is there anything we can do? Talk to Elrohir again, maybe?"

Kren's eyes gleamed angrily in the moonlight as his hood shadowed his features. "For all the good that would do. But it will take time for the Council to realize their Envoy is dead. Hm. On the next full moon, go to Linden and intercept whoever they send and tell them that all is in order, that their druid died exposing the danger, which we have taken care of."

Atela's long striped tail twitched side to side. "Could we not just..."

His hand slashed the space between them. "No! Do as I say, initiate! You cannot speak of what you know without courting death. Go to Linden to wait for the Council's new Envoy. Send them away if you can, and then return."

The large felinoid sucked her lip, searching into the night for something, perhaps an answer to the peril the Grove faced she could not quite see. Her eyes turned only briefly, fearfully, to the south, where just two dozen miles away awaited a nightmare she could not bear to even try to comprehend. "And if they refuse to leave?"

"Death."

The young Drow woman grumbled under her loose head wrappings at the sunlight slanting through the window shutters. The veil concealing her dark featured puffed with impatient breath. "That damned orb. When is it going to set?"

"Patience, daughter," Vinlesu said. "You should be like Pokra. He's adapted to the sunlight very well."

Upon hearing his name, the small Wyvern hatchling squawked and lazily flapped down from the ceiling rafters to alight on Angjra's slender shoulders, hoping for attention and maybe a treat. The young Drow nuzzled affectionately at the green winged lizard, giving him a small morsel of dried meat from her pocket. "Well, wyverns are stupid that way," Angjra said as she cooed playfully at her pet.

Vinlesu frowned and looked about the tavern while her daughter tended to her pet. Going by the unusual name of the Laughing Spider, the establishment was a fair size larger than the small hovel of an inn they were currently sleeping away the days in. But they couldn't expect any better accommodations. In the surface settlement of Linden, a walled town in the heavily-forested no-man's land between the two human kingdoms of Kasono and Arin, non-humans outside of the local clans of prissy Wood Elves were uniformly looked upon with suspicion.

Still, Linden was better than most. It was one of the few surface settlements that tolerated open trade with the Dark Kingdoms. Technically the town currently belonged to the kingdom of Kasono, but it switched ownership so much between Kasono's and Arin's frequent wars that most residents simply though of Linden as independent. It helped as well that there was a large, independent order of powerful Druids active in the area which usually kept major trouble-like invading armies-far away from the vast forest Linden was nestled in.

Vinlesu and her daughter had traveled with a trade caravan sponsored by the House Auvryant, carrying primarily spider silk, which was highly prized in the surface kingdoms for its strength and flexibility. Vinlesu had decided she and Angjra would stay behind when the caravan headed back to the Dark Kingdoms, to give her daughter a better education about surface peoples.

The elder Drow regarded her daughter's little winged creature. "Of the three of us, Pokra is the one who adapted to take advantage of his new surroundings the quickest. Who are the stupid ones here?"

Angjra rolled her dark eyes. "Mother, must you turn everything into a lesson?"

"If you were not so slow to learn, I would not need to. You do understand that Pokra himself is a lesson, yes?"

Angjra heaved the universal sigh of a martyred daughter. "'A lesson in mortality' you told me when you gave him to me. I still don't understand what he is supposed to teach me. Wyverns live twenty years or so. A long time."

Vinlesu shook her head. "It only seems long because you are young yet, a mere ninety nine years. But you must realize that as Drow we outlive all others on this world except the mongrel surface elves. This can be a source of strength for us, but like with all true strength it is only gained at a price."

Eight loud and boisterous human males burst suddenly into the tavern, interrupting her words. A number of them rewarded the Drow with hostile stares, but gave them no further notice as they settled into a large table not too far away.

"Let's move to somewhere...quieter," Vinlesu advised. Angjra flashed her eyes angrily at the humans, but moved obediently with her mother as they grabbed their drinks and gravitated toward the more sparsely-populated back end of the tavern room. They stopped at the bar to let the barkeep fetch them some stew and wine, and sat near a large female felinoid greedily shoveling her own helping of the stew into her mouth.

The felinoid looked up, her long tongue licking her chops. She spotted the two Drow and gestured at the empty bench at her table. "Tales and laughter are always welcome," the large female said with a toothy smile.

Vinlesu nodded at the time-honored tavern-greeting. Taverns in surface towns were usually considered neutral ground between races and factions. It wasn't uncommon for travelers from disparate backgrounds to exchange the two favored modes of exchange in taverns-stories and dirty jokes.

"Atela," the felinoid said by way of introduction as the Drow sat down and began eating.

"I am Vinlesu of the House Auvryant, and this is my daughter, Angjra of the House Auvryant." The younger Drow barely tipped her veiled head in acknowledgement, loosing a faint sniffle of haughty disdain. Vinlesu frowned but said nothing. In the Dark Kingdoms, in their own realms, such a response would be appropriate and even encouraged. But here on the surface, surrounded by many potential enemies, they had to show better restraint than that. Still, that was a reprimand for another time. She knew better than to lecture her daughter too much in a single day.

After the meal, the three females sipped their drinks, the baby wyvern lapping greedily at the empty wooden bowls. To Vinlesu's surprise, the large white-striped felinoid began purring.

"So what brings you to Linden, Atela?" Vinlesu asked.

"I'm here to meet with a representative of the Council of Druids. Their official Envoy, as a matter of fact. I'm to escort her to our Grove."

Angjra sniffed. "A nature worshipper!"

Atela tapered her high triangular back, her brows creasing. "Something wrong, night-skin?"

"It just seems to me a foolish path of magic. My mother here is a real sorceress, a necromancer..."

Atela's brow's shot high, then turned to Vinlesu and bowed in her chair. "I was unaware. I greet you with respect, Death-worker."

Vinlesu returned the bow. "As I you, Life-worker."

Angjra seemed incensed. "Mother!" How can you pay respect to..."

The cat-woman just shook her head and chuckled. "It's obvious that you don't follow in your mother's path of magic. If you did, you would know of druids and necromancers."

Before anyone could explain further, shouts and commotion drew their attention to the front of the room. The large group of human men had trapped one of the establishment's serving girls and was bending her over one of the room's rough-hewn wooden tables. A man on each of her arms held her down flat to the table, while the largest of them, a spectacularly hairy bear of a man, stood behind her. He lifted her long skirt and ran his hands along her exposed flesh, like a horse trader inspecting a prospective mount. The girl wept and begged, but there was little mercy in the men's hard eyes.

"I hope that sort of thing isn't common here," Angjra remarked. "I'll have a hard enough time holding down that coarse stew without watching humans rut..."

"I recognize that gang of pigs," Atela said. "Jorton and his toadies. They run a local 'protection' business, if you know what I mean. They tried something with me once, but I just smiled at them." She grinned broadly, showing off a mouth full of angular predator's teeth.

Vinlesu notices that despite the words of disdain, her daughter was drilling the proceedings with increasingly angry eyes. No doubt reliving in her mind the near-incident with her own father. But no matter what, they could not interfere. No matter how odious this Jorton and his gang may be, no one in authority in this town would choose to punish humans over a pair of alien Drow.

The barkeep, no small man himself, was trying to interfere, but he was just shoved back out of the way. He glowered, fists clenched, but ultimately could only back down before the wall of muscle formed by the five remaining men in the gang not engaged with the girl.

The leader of the men jimmied loose his breeches. The girl sobbed loudly as he spread her legs from behind and poised himself to enter.

Suddenly, impossibly, the leg of the table gave a loud tortured groan and shot up from between the girl's legs, slamming the man joltingly in his low-hanging sack like a sledgehammer.

The hairy man staggered back, his howl of shock quickly collapsing into a breathless mouse-squeak as the pain hit. He crumpled to the floorboards like a felled tree, hands on his groin, tears streaming down ruddy cheeks.

The table bucked and twisted like a wild horse, its surface flowing like water and its legs writhing like tentacles. The girl and her captors alike shrieked in terror. The men were thrown clear as the edges of the table snapped up, forming a shallow cup to trap the girl. As soon as the males were clear, the table ran toward the back of the tavern with its sobbing and confused passenger, toward the waiting innkeeper.

"You scum touch that girl again and I'll send you all howling into the next Path!" A pale-skinned elf woman, dressed in Druid's robes and carrying an intricately-carved staff, stood in the doorway. She threw the heavy hood of her gray robes back, prominently displaying the crest on her lapel.

"Aw, crap, a Druid!" one of the men said, obviously disappointed that their 'game' may be at an end.

"No wait!" another exclaimed. "Look at her crest! She isn't a local! We don't have to take her shit!"

Angjra laughed quietly. "Ha! Now this is much more entertaining! Eh, mother?" She saw Vinlesu's eyes widen in shock. "Mother?"

Vinlesu's breath caught in her throat, her eyes drilling the elf woman at the doorway. "Hilfy!" she whispered.

It was Angjra's turn to look shocked now as she looked from her mother to the elven druid and back again. She had heard of the Hilfy, of course. Her grandmother and a few of the long-serving elf slaves of the House had readily told the young Drow the story of her mother's great forbidden love. "That's Hilfy?" she whispered, confused. Wasn't Hilfy supposed to be dead?

The elf woman looked small compared to the tall human males, barely topping their shoulders. She had long flame-red hair tied back in two functional-looking braids. As she looked warily at her half-circle of opponents, Angjra could see that her right ear held three silver studs, marking her as a Drow slave-or former slave, in this case. In her left ear was an emerald-studded circlet that could be the ring mentioned in her grandmother's story, as well as golden circlet attached to it by a silver chain.

Atela sighed and shot to her feet. "The Envoy! Damn, looks like I'll have to bail that fool out. Thanks for the company," she told the two Drow. Without another word, she leapt up onto the table, sending the bowls and drinks clattering everywhere, and crouched very much like a real cat. Pokra, working steadily at the last bowl, squawked in annoyance. With a very feral snarl Atela launched herself onto the back of the closest of the gang, snapping and clawing through cloth and flesh alike.

Pure chaos erupted in the tavern after that, weapons and fists swinging, people shouting and scrambling to get out of the way.

"We have to help!" Vinlesu said, pulling her own weapons.

Angjra just nodded and smiled wickedly. Twin battle knives ghosted into her hands from seeming nowhere. Angjra had definitely inherited her father's talent with weapons.

"No killing!" Vinlesu admonished. "We kill, we bring the town guards down on us. We don't want that. Understand?"

Her daughter grumped, but nodded a split-second before she waded into the melee.

Jorton's men turned out to be more than the quick exercise Vinlesu had hoped they would be. Running a protection racket in a frontier town between two oft-warring nations required thugs who could frighten even hardened residents. The humans proved fierce and skilled fighters, and Vinlesu knew they were truly going to be trouble when she saw one gesticulating for a spell-casting.

Fortunately, Linden was in the middle of a lush forest, a source of power for a necromancer like her, though few outside her order would guess the reason why. It was one of those secrets every sorcerous order kept from the others, to gain whatever advantage they could.

The human spellcaster drew a portion of the central hearth fire up from its pit and shot it at Hilfy as a long sinuous tentacle of flame. Hilfy caught sight of it just in time. One of the small army of wooden chairs she had animated leapt up to intercept it. The splash of orange-red fire momentarily lit up the entire room.

The spell-caster was probably a fire-elementalist, then. Despite common wisdom, they were often welcome in forest settlements, their skills in controlling flame very useful in combating forest fires whenever they arose.

He readied another spell while one of his compatriots slashed a sword at Hilfy. Vinlesu had to act fast. She chanted a word of power, and outside dozens of birds and hundreds of insects fell from the sky, dead. The Drow sorceress pulled their life-force to her and used it to spark the spell she threw at the human wizard.

Blindsided and concentrating on his own spell, the human elementalist screamed and fell to his knees as his blood literally boiled in his veins for a brief heartbeat. Vinlesu couldn't let the spell last longer than that, for fear of killing him, but it was very pleasant to hear his choking screams of pure burning agony.

Sometimes the old cliches were best. Fight fire with...

Suddenly a large shadow loomed behind Angjra, who herself was smirking in triumph over one of the fallen thugs. Jorton, having recovered from his earlier blow, raised his meaty fists over the unknowing Drow.

Vinlesu was about to call a warning when a heavy earthenware pot slammed down on Jorton's head. Once again, the man crashed to the floor. Angjra turned to see the innkeeper grinning ear to ear with the jagged remnants of the jug in his meaty hands.

The serving girl the gang had tried to rape earlier emerged from behind the innkeeper, brandishing a heavy oak churning stick. She wasted no time in savaging her unconscious would-be attacker with it.

Vin looked around. The thugs were all down. The quartet of Druid and Drow females grinned at each other. They started as they heard a horn blow outside. Both Atela and the innkeeper cringed. "The city guard," the human said to Vinlesu. "You'd best go."

"You saved my daughter," she said. "We are in your debt."

"Mother!" Angjra spat, annoyed that her mother would say such a thing so casually to a human.

"Never mind that. Go!" he urged.

Vinlesu nodded and joined the other three women down the street just as a half dozen city guards descended on The Laughing Spider. Luckily they gave the foursome nothing more than a passing glance.

"Mother!" Angjra complained. "I cannot believe you offered your indebtedness to that...human." She said the last word like she was referring to a dung-worm.

She cut here eyes hard at her daughter and stalked up to her, snarling. "I did not offer my indebtedness, I offered yours! If you see that innkeeper or any of his family in trouble, you will help them in order to fulfill that debt! Just because we are on the surface among mongrel races does not mean you will not act like a Drow should! Understand?"

"But..."

Her eyes blazed through the small opening in her veil. "I said: Do. You. Understand?"

Her daughter set her lips defiantly for several heartbeats, but then heaved another of her martyr-like sighs. "Yes, Mother."

"Next time, fight better so you won't have to be saved by a human."

"That voice..." came a soft whisper. All three turned to regard Hilfy, looking askew at the veiled Drow woman. "Your daughter looks an awful lot like..."

Vinlesu heaved a sigh very much like her daughter's. She pulled down the veil, giving the Wood Elf a strained smile. "Yes, Pet. Its me. Vinlesu."

The four of them eventually made their way back to the traveler's Inn where it turned out Atela as well as the two Drow were staying, named the Moonlit Stable. It was a broad two-story affair attached to a large stable, and unlike the Laughing Spider it provided only utilitarian rooms to travelers, no food or drink or revelry would be found inside that guests did not bring themselves.

Hilfy was quiet most of the short walk, except to confirm that she was indeed the Envoy from the Council of Druids that Atela was to meet. She and the felinoid exchanged greetings courteously before the red haired Wood Elf segued into troubled silence again.

The felinoid was very talkative, however, recounting every gruesome detail in putting down two of their opponents. She hung closer to Angjra as she talked, clearly more comfortable around another warrior than the pair of experienced sorceresses. Angjra listened and even made some comments of her own, occasionally tending to the baby wyvern perched on her shoulder, the adrenaline rush of the fight still fresh in her.

Vinlesu could sense the almost palpable tension coming from Hilfy. What was going through her former body slave's mind? She had barely acknowledged Vinlesu's revelation outside of an initial stunned look and a curt nod.

When they reached the common room of the inn, thankfully mostly deserted except for a young boy sweeping up, Vinlesu tentatively laid a hand on Hilfy's arm. "Pet, maybe we should talk..."

Hilfy yanked her hand away and turned toward the Drow, her hand sweeping her robes wide. "Don't call me that! I haven't been your 'Pet' for a hundred years, Vinlesu!"

Vinlesu blinked, taken aback, and though she would never let it show, she was more than slightly hurt. "I did not mean it like that...Hilfy. Of course you're no longer my Pet."

The elven Druid crossed her arms tightly and harrumphed. Silence stretched.

Atela looked from one to the other, then tugged gently at Angjra's arm. "Come on, I have an aleskin in my room."

The younger Drow scrunched her nose at the invitation, but the felinoid just added, "There are some battles where you want an army at your back, and there are some battles that are best fought alone." She cast a meaningful glance at the past lovers.

Angjra thought it over, looking at the elder Drow herself. The tension building between her mother and Hilfy could be cleaved with an axe. "Um, perhaps you are right. I have been told I have to learn to get along with you surface-dwellers, so I might as well start with you. I guess."

"What of our business?" Hilfy asked the felinoid.

Atela shrugged her white-furred shoulders. "I imagine that can wait until morning, Envoy. I'll be on the second floor, in the room just to the right of the stairs." With that she led the younger Drow up the creaking wooden steps.

Silence stretched again. Vinlesu sighed. "Hilfy, I never expected to see you again."

The Druid thought about the words for several heartbeats, then threw her long braids back casually, her arms unlocking just slightly. "Or I you, Vinlesu," she sighed. "And I must admit I don't know what to say."

Vinlesu rubbed the nape of her dark neck, feeling the tension just building in her spine. There had been a time in her life when she'd fantasized about such a reunion almost daily, always envisioning it would be joyous, maybe even loving. Not this cold, sterile stand-off. Still, what did she expect? A century is a long time, even for elves. "We should go somewhere private to talk. My room perhaps?"

Hilfy tilted her head and frowned.

"Just to talk!" Vinlesu added hastily. "I swear, truly, that's all I want."

Her former body slave thought for a moment, then nodded.

Angjra slid down the rough wooden side of the Inn's outer wall after Atela. Having grown up in caves, Angjra was no stranger to climbing, but even she had been impressed at the Felinoid's casual ease at which she scaled to the ground.

The Drow initiate wiped her hands on her leggings as Pokra alighted himself on her shoulder and mewled softly. "I thought we were going to share a drink in your room," Angjra said.

The felinoid laughed and tossed Angjra a small aleskin after taking a swig from it herself. "Here you go. Actually, all I said was I had ale in my room, not that I wanted to stay there to drink it. Just an excuse to give your mom and the Envoy some room. It was obvious even to my addled kitty brain that they had something serious to sort out."

Angjra shrugged before cautiously taking a sip of the tepid brew. She winced at its acrid taste. "Hilfy was my mother's body slave for thirty years before I was born. I thought she had died killing my treacherous aunt."

"Body slave?"

"A special type of servant that satisfies an owner's sexual needs. They are fairly common among the elite houses, and are usually highly favored."

Atela laughed, snatching the ale back and taking another large drought from it. "Sounds very kinky. I wouldn't mind having some well-hardened males under me to ride whenever I wanted. Who knew you uptight Drow had fun that way?"

Angjra's cheeks burned. Ever since her near-rape by her father years ago, sex had been a subject she had studiously avoided, even when it brought snickers and cruel comments from her peers when they thought she was out of earshot. Not necessarily a bad kind of reputation for a future assassin to garner, but it still hurt nonetheless.

It was not as if she were asexual either. Often at night, in the furs of her own sleeping chambers, her mind would wander to boundless sensual fantasies as her fingers roamed over her most sensitive places. She could spend hours in the night before the wyverns called simply lost in ecstasy, roaming endlessly among her fantasies and caressing hands. But it was not a part of herself she was anxious to share. "We-we have fun a lot of ways," she found herself saying before she could stop herself.

Atela guffawed and batted her affectionately on her shoulder. "You're all right, night-skin. Look, I brought you out here for a reason. Want to make some money?"

Angjra perked her snowy brows up. The Matron of her house, her grandmother, had always taught not to let an opportunity for profit to go squandered. Too many great houses in the Dark Kingdoms had been undone not by machiavellian schemes or sorcerous intrigues, but by their own crushing debts. "I'm listening."

The felinoid smiled toothily and held out her furry hand. "Then I need all the silver and copper crowns you have."

Hilfy crossed her arms in a huff. "So talk."

Vinlesu frowned. Could nothing ever go easy? "I just want to know how you've been, Pe...Hilfy. I'm overjoyed to see you're doing so well. Envoy of the druidic order. I admit I was very afraid for you when you first escaped. The tunnel that I set you on was in a remote region both in the Dark Kingdoms and on the surface. And you had been sheltered for so long..."

"Is that what you call slavery now? Shelter?"

"That is not what I meant!"

Hilfy grumped, hunching her shoulders higher, until all at once she allowed them to droop, her demeanor relaxing. "I-I know, Vinlesu. I know. Its just taken me so long to put everything from that part of my life behind me."

Vinlesu blinked. "Every thing?"

The Wood Elf nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry. When I came back, I was quite a pariah for having been a Drow body slave. Few would talk to me or have anything to do with me. My old clan would not take me back. Thankfully the Druids were a bit more understanding, taking in such a used, unclean piece of trash like me."

"I tried to do right by you."

Hilfy sighed, long and heavy. "Yes you did...eventually. But I guess I can't blame you for acting like a Drow for so long. Might as well blame a dog for barking or a bird for flying."

Now Vinlesu could feel her own anger rising. "There is nothing wrong with being a Drow!"

Hilfy swept her hand angrily between them. "You Drow just take whatever you want, whenever you want it!"

"Well, I can remember a time you looked forward to that when you shared my bed!"

Hilfy opened her mouth for an angry retort, then shut it again as her cheeks burned bright red. The Druid shook her head. "Spirits, Vinlesu, what are we doing?"

The Drow sighed. "Taking a century's worth of hurt out on each other, it seems."

"Maybe. But I shouldn't be attacking you. You at least have a daughter and your family, still." She sat down heavily on the cot, hugging herself. "I have nothing, even after all this time."

After much self-conflicted hesitation, Vinlesu sat beside her. "No?"

Hilfy twiddled with her wooden staff idly. "My relationships have been one disaster after another. None seemed to last more than a few years. I tried a great many different partners, male and female, of many different races, but they all felt hollow. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't make them work."

Vinlesu shrugged and tilted your head. "At least you tried. I've hardly had anyone since Angjra came into my life. It just wasn't the same."

Hilfy tilted her head at her former lover. "Well, you must have had at least Angjra's father."

The Drow grimaced like she had just tasted curdled blood. "Her father...is not the person I would have preferred him to be." She hung her head, snow white hair spilling over her eyes. "It was Jaelna."

Hilfy's eyes popped wide. "What? After all that happened? I didn't even think the Drow approved of such unions producing children."

"We don't, but it was not my decision. The Matron wanted an heir untainted by the conflicts between me and my siblings. But one of pure Auvryant blood. So she thought that the benefits outweighed the potential downsides. Thankfully, our gamble bore fruit. Angjra was born fully healthy."

The Wood Elf nodded. "So what now?" she asked after many awkward minutes of silence.

"Well, going back to what we were clearly isn't an option. Could we maybe be just friends instead?"

Hilfy sucked her lips. "I'm not very good at friendship either, Vinlesu."

"Well, I'm willing to try if you are."

The Druid chuckled. "How many people would believe I have a Drow in my room trying to be apologetic and friendly?"

Vinlesu drew a deep frown, then smiled herself. "Not many, I suppose. Even other Drow. But you are a special circumstance. Please, if you are willing to try and be friends, let's at least get caught up on each others' lives."

Hilfy pursed her lips and brushed back a long strand of her flame-orange hair. "All right. Where do we start though?"

"Well, just start with what happened after you finally made it to the surface so long ago..."

"You're cheating!"

Atela stopped mid-way through reaching for the current pile of coins, raising a furry brow. Towering over her was a gruff looking blacksmith, a well-worn iron hammer from his shop still tucked into his belt. His meaty arms were as thick as her waist. The men surrounding them didn't look that much smaller, or friendlier. "Um...what makes you say that?"

The blacksmith casually rubbed his shaved-smooth pate. "I begrudge no one an honest streak of luck, longtail. But your dice-they roll the same each time. Especially that one. Almost always shows a four before it tips over to a six."

Atela tipped her head back and laughed. She made sure her bosom jiggled in her small halter. Every bit of distraction helped when gambling, especially with males involved. Angjra, her veil up, watched anxiously from behind the felinoid. "Don't be silly," Atela said, lending a soft purr to her voice. "Where would a fuzzy little girl like me get dice like that?"

The blacksmith picked up the die in question and rolled it into the little stringed-off circle on the stable floor. It tumbled to a four, then rolled over onto a six. He rolled it again, with the same result. After that, he crushed the small bone-carved cube in his powerful fist. He snarled low at the felinoid and her companion, the other half-dozen males following suit. Some had their hands on their weapons. "I knew it! Cheaters!"

The blacksmith took a step forward, only to have a small winged green creature swoop by his face, slashing at his eyes. Pokra screeched in warning at the big male human, slashing and dodging the blacksmith's clumsy attempt to swat him away. The other gamblers jostled in confusion.

Atela wasted no time in taking advantage, snatching up the small pile of coins like a starving cobra, then grabbing Angjra's hand and running like mad out into the street. Cries of confusion back in the barn gave way all at once to cries of outrage. Within two heartbeats they had a mob bursting out of the building after them, crying for their blood.

Angjra pulled back from the felinoid's grip as Atela led them in a winding path through the town's streets. "Stop! Drow aren't supposed to run!"

"Its better than dying!" Atela quipped.

Vinlesu listened as Hilfy told of her life after her hasty liberation a century ago. The first few years were very rough for the newly freed wood elf. Just getting used to being free and on the surface was jarring enough, but she had made the mistake of letting people know that she had been a Drow body slave. That made her an outcast and a pariah among many, including her kin, who refused her entry into any of their lands after they learned the truth of her missing decades.

It did not help that she was emotionally devastated as well. A number of people told her that her feelings for Vin had been due to Drow conditioning, or to hostage syndrome. Had anything she felt toward her former mistress had been genuine, or just the result of her giving her captor what was expected so she could survive? Would there ever be a way she could ever know? Being so alone, with so few to comfort her, devastated her for many years. She drifted from town to town and kingdom to kingdom, lost and confused, drifting in and out of many beds trying to satisfy a yearning she couldn't name, and failing miserably every time.

Eventually she was welcomed by a sect of Druids, and found some modicum of comfort in their beliefs and magic. Nature and the deep woods, for all its complexity and cruelty, never judged her harshly for her past.

Her many failed relationships only kindled a growing anger in her toward all things intimate. She began just using lovers herself, treating them with disdain as soon as they tried to get closer than sweating bodies in a bed. Male, female, human, elf, it didn't matter. Then, about ten years ago, she stopped even trying anymore. It was simply too painful.

Vinlesu's tale was somewhat less colorful. Her life in the past hundred years had been taken up by her daughter and Drow politics. The Dark Kingdoms were a lot less politically volatile than their counterparts on the surface, but even in a hundred years some things changed regardless. Houses rose and fell, as they always did, and Vinlesu had worked tirelessly along with her Matron to make sure the House Auvryant kept crawling upward on the Drow food chain.

Formerly, the House had been a major water broker and supplier, a position of great influence in any case. But the Matron had wanted to make sure their holdings were solid and diversified, so she began quite a bit of speculative trading, even buying a few spider-ranches for the cultivation of spider silk. Vin and her daughter had come along on the caravan to the surface to make sure this part of the House's operations were running smoothly.

But Vinlesu's most important task had been raising the House's heir, Angjra. Her brother Jaelna had fallen into extreme disfavor, especially after his near-rape of his own daughter. The Matron and Vinlesu allowed him a small stipend to live on, but for the most part they and Angjra's father barely saw each other any more, despite living in the same ancient palace.

Angjra had turned out to be the one bright burning ember of joy in Vinlesu's otherwise coarse existence. Her daughter had grown up straight and strong and smart, a paragon of everything a Drow female should be. Including, unfortunately, headstrong and independent. Vinlesu had not wanted her daughter to take up the Assassin's path. Though by law Assassins were immune to reprisals after their job was finished, not all in the Dark Kingdoms took such laws seriously. And besides, it was inherently dangerous work, much more dangerous than even normal Drow society. Vinlesu had often found herself very conflicted between wanting her daughter to acquire the skills and cruelty needed for survival in the Dark Kingdoms, and wanting her daughter to remain safe and sheltered forever in the Auvryant palace.

Unlike Hilfy, she'd only had two lovers since they had parted. The Wood Elf who replaced Hilfy, called Jalithria, she'd treated very well while the body slave acted as a nanny while Angjra grew up. Unfortunately, Jalithria had died in an interhouse raid while the House Auvryant openly warred with the House Ineris fifty years before. Vinlesu's House had obviously emerged triumphant, but the conflict had left a number of their assets, allies, and slaves devastated or dead, including Jalithria.

"The war with House Ineris was harrowing," Vinlesu said. "Like us, they had a number of powerful sorcerers and allies. Fortunately, they hadn't counted on a number of hidden strengths we had."

"Like what?" Hilfy asked.

Vinlesu held up her finger and dug into her pack, pulling out a small, fist-sized sphere of pure darkness. "Like this."

Hilfy reached her hand out to touch it, then pulled it away hastily less than an inch from contact. "Gods, I can sense the power in it. Its dormant, but very potent. What is it? Where did you get it?"

Vinlesu smirked. "Remember what Sadra did to that skin shaper? Flayed him for his magically tattooed skin?"

Hilfy blinked in surprise, reaching out again, this time tentatively touching the orb. She shivered at its smooth, almost stone-like feel, but with some of the rough texture of skin still barely detectable. "You mean this is that?"

"Yes. I've molded and transformed it over the years. Much less...distasteful than its original form. I've also been trying to mold all the magic and protective spells in it into a more useful and potent source of general power. I've even added a great deal of my own magic to it."

Hilfy's fingers moving over the surface of the orb brushed Vinlesu's. They lingered there for just a brief heartbeat, both women suddenly looking each other in the eye. Something indefinable passed between them. Then Hilfy withdrew her fingers and looked away.

Vinlesu's heart hammered in her chest. For just a brief second there, she could almost swear she had seen the Hilfy she had known so long ago, in another lifetime. Say something! she derided herself. Don't let this moment pass!

Vinlesu swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. "Hilfy, I..."

The wooden shutters on the small room suddenly banged inward, two figures flying through the window to land on the small cot next to the two elf women. The bodies crashed together and all four went sprawling onto the floor.

"Angjra!" Vinlesu sputtered as her daughter lay across her torso.

The white-furred felinoid was first on her feet, rushing to close the shutters just as Pokra flew through. A heartbeat later, they heard the shouts of the angry mob crescendo and fade. She snarled at the younger Drow. "Dammit, you call that a levitation spell?"

"I told you I was just a novice at that sort of thing!" Angjra snapped as she disentangled herself from the other two elves. Angjra, despite her focus almost solely on martial skills, had been taught some minor magicks to help with her chosen career. "I've never had to levitate anyone besides myself! I was lucky to get us this high!"

"Shhh!" The cat girl was listening at the window. Finally, she relaxed and turned toward the others. "Okay, I think we gave them the slip."

"What are you two doing here?" Hilfy asked.

"Well, I was hoping for my room, but the crowd would have been on us if we went all the way around..."

Vinlesu felt her anger spark. "Get out!"

Angjra blinked. "Mother, we..."

She had been so close to getting Hilfy to open up! After so long! And the moment was gone, snatched away. "I do not care about your excuses! Whatever you and your new 'pet' were doing, you had no right to interrupt us!"

"But humans were chasing us, and you said we couldn't kill them, so we..."

Vinlesu's eyes exploded with dark flame and her voice sunk to a low, echoing growl nothing human could be capable of. "Out!"

The two younger women yeeped and scrambled to get out of the room. Within a heartbeat they found themselves rushing down the cramped second-floor corridor as the door to Vinlesu's room slammed loudly behind them.

Vinlesu seethed for a moment more, than heard a familiar, soft laughter behind her. She turned to see Hilfy throwing back her scarlet braids, chuckling deeply. "You taught your daughter to levitate, but you did not even teach her that simple illusion?" With a gesture, Hilfy made her eyes glow briefly with dark hellfire as well. It was one of the most basic magic user dweomers, used to impress easily-cowed mundanes.

"Well..." Vinlesu growled in her inhuman voice, startling herself. She dismissed the voice enchantment. "Well, a mother has to keep some secrets to keep her daughter in line." She found herself giggling as well. "They did look very funny, scared like that, didn't they?"

"I haven't laughed like that in a good long time," Hilfy said with a genuine smile. Vinlesu heart ached, remembering that sorely-missed smile, and easily returned one of her own.

The two girls slammed the door to Atela's room shut, leaning against it and gasping for breath. "I hate it when she does that!" Angjra said.

"I find I'm also not too fond of it," Atela admitted, suppressing a shiver. "Well, you can sleep here if you want, Night Skin. Hopefully your mother will be a bit more agreeable in the morning."

"Hopefully."

Pokra landed on the broad hay-laden cot and scolded the two females with squawks, over-excited and annoyed at all the fuss. Angjra went over to scritch him behind his head horns and feed him some treats to calm him down.

Atela grabbed up the small sack of coins and spilled them on the room's modest table. "Well, here, let's split this up before we do anything else."

"What? I am not going to take any of that! A daughter of the House of Auvryant has no need for stolen coins!"

Atela rolled her eyes. "First you couldn't eat with the mongrels. Then you couldn't run. And now you can't accept stolen money which you helped me steal! Great Earth Mother, Night-Skin, are you allowed to do anything that's fun?"

"Its not like that! I am an elite, from one of the Great Houses! I cannot besmirch my standing by..."

Atela nodded absently and finished counting the coins. "Well, here is your half. Five silvers and thirteen copper crowns. Not a bad bit of profit, eh?"

Angjra blinked, remembering what her Matron had taught her about money. She gingerly took up the coins, feeling their weight in her palms. It did give her a heady feeling, knowing what was once someone else's just a half-hour ago was hers now. And this day had certainly been exciting, much more interesting than any day she could recall in the Dark Kingdoms. She felt herself relax, letting go of tension she didn't even know she had been holding since coming into these alien surface lands. Perhaps things weren't so bad here after all.

"Good," The felinoid said with satisfaction. "And seeing as its just us girls now..." With one sinuous, casual motion, Atela shrugged out of her small halter top and loin cloth, then kicked off her sandals.

Angjra gaped at her striped nude form, for the first time really noticing Atela's smooth, sweeping curves, the soft texture of her fur. Her eyes were drawn despite themselves to the surface dweller's taut nipples poking through her thin breast fur. "What...what are you doing?" the dark-skinned girl asked.

Atela, unmindful of the Drow's attention, stretched and purred loudly, her long tail switching back and forth in satisfaction. "I couldn't wait to get out of those human clothes. I hate wearing them, I'd rather be more in touch with the feral side of my nature, as the Earth Goddess intended. But you humans and elves are always so whiny if I don't cover up." She blinked, noticing her companion's stare. "This doesn't bother you, does it?"

Angjra suddenly realized she was openly staring. She turned away quickly, a bright blush showing even through her coal black skin. "What? O-of course not!"

The Felinoid crossed her arms casually over her generous bosom. "Mm-hm, right. Well, don't expect any hanky-panky tonight, Night Skin. I'm exhausted from the past few hours."

"I was not thinking of that at all!" Angjra protested, still doing her best not to look directly at the taller female. Her deep blush had spread to her neck and shoulders, now.

Atela smirked. "Suit yourself." She stretched out on the cot, scooting over to one side before turning on her side away from the Drow. "Well, you can have that side of the bed. I really want to get some sleep now, okay?"

Angjra looked at the supine felinoid as she slowly undressed to her undergarments, a loose shift and a pair of leggings. She looked at the naked woman, the long graceful sweep on her flank, the soft moons of her backside split by her occasionally twitching tail. She imagined briefly her dark fingers sliding along that white-furred rump, wondering just how soft Atela's fur was...

She shook herself away from such thought and sighed as she slid into the cot and turned away from Atela. Pokra settled down next to her, murring at the warmth, oblivious to his mistress' tension. This was going to be a long night.

In the morning, another surprise. "We're going with you," Vinlesu announced to Hilfy and Atela.

"What!" the two younger women exclaimed together, but Hilfy seemed unsurprised.

Former Mistress and former Pet had talked long into the night until they could no longer stay awake. Hilfy insisted on sleeping on the floor, saying a Druid could make wood as comfortable as any bedding, and left the cot for Vinlesu.

Vinlesu woke in the middle of the night, and quietly watched Hilfy sleep by the moonlight slicing in through the room's shutters. Hilfy had slept thus in proximity to Vinlesu for a long time, huddled fitfully at the foot of Vinlesu's bed in her early years as a favored body slave. At the time it had made Vinlesu feel powerful and superior. Now, seeing Hilfy like that again, all it did was make her mournful for what had been lost between them. She indescribable urge to protect and care for the flame-haired Wood Elf with all her energy.

Which was silly, of course. What they had once shared was a lifetime ago-several lifetimes, as some races measured things. And from what she had seen the day before in The Laughing Spider, Hilfy was a long way aways from the near-helpless slave she had been in the Dark Kingdoms.

The last ten decades had been hard and lonely ones for Vinlesu. Jalithria had been pleasant enough, but had never come close to filling the void in her mistress' heart the way Hilfy had. But she had made up for it another way, by becoming a doting and favored nanny to Angjra. Too often while Angjra had been growing up, Vinlesu had caught herself wondering how her daughter would have turned out if Hilfy had been the nanny instead.

She owed Hilfy...something. And Vinlesu wanted to make sure that whatever that something was, that it was repaid. "You will be much safer in your travels with four instead of two," the Drow sorceress explained to the Wood Elf. "Besides, we stayed on the surface so my daughter could learn more about this world, and this seems like a good opportunity for that."

Hilfy nodded. "I see no reason why not."

Atela simply gave a dismissive shrug. "Well, whatever. It doesn't really matter if they come along, given that you vouch for them, Envoy. But we should get going. We'll have to buy a few extra supplies now, and we have quite a ways to walk."

Angjra tugged her lips downward as the Druids talked. "Mother, I am not so sure this is a good idea."

"Why not, daughter? Atela said most of the way is through shady forest paths, so we will not have to worry about the sun that much. And if we meet any trouble, that will certainly be a learning opportunity for you, won't it?"

"I..." Angjra began, then clamped her mouth closed. How could she explain that it wasn't the environment, but the company they would keep. She liked the idea of spending more time with Atela, but at the same time she could not dismiss the nervousness she felt now whenever she thought of the cat girl. Naked gray-on-white fur flashed through her mind whenever she closed her eyes for longer than a blink. "V-very well, Mother. As you wish."

Hilfy smiled at the Drow women as she and Atela finished hammering out the details of the journey. "Well, it seems visiting this Grove will be a much more pleasant task than I had first thought."

Atela pursed her lips. Damn, she had been so preoccupied by everything that had happened in the past night that it had slipped her mind that she was supposed to warn Hilfy off. Too late to do that now, apparently. Her trying to send the Wood Elf away now would only raise too many questions, not with just the Envoy but their two Drow companions as well.

Not that she really objected to a few more days with Angjra. Despite the younger Drow's stuffy attitude, Atela had to admit she found something very appealing about her. Still, there might be hell to pay from Kren when she got back to the Grove, but there was no helping things now.

"Fate is only as the Earth Mother wishes," she whispered quietly to herself, looking over her trio of odd companions.

The sun was at its apex, but thankfully hidden behind a thick forest canopy, before they finally made their way through the cultivated land surrounding Linden and into the surrounding deeps of the vast forest. Angjra was more than a little dismayed and angry at the role chosen for her. "I don't see why I have to look after this smelly beast! I don't even see why we have to have it along at all!"

"Four days hike to the grove, four days back," Atela pointed out, stroking the mule's neck as the younger Drow led it down the narrow path by its reigns. Hilfy and Vinlesu were ten or so paces ahead of them, Hilfy using her druidic magic to recruit some crows to scout the path ahead of them. "That's a lot of supplies for the four of us, plus all our tents and gear and such. Better the mule carries all of it than us." She gave a playful laugh and struck skillfully into the air with her staff at imaginary targets. "That leaves us free to do all the heroic stuff."

"Leading this oversized...dog?...is not heroic at all." To add insult to injury, Pokra seemed to love the mule. The small wyvern had curled up on a small patch of exposed fur near the neck of the animal and was fast asleep.

"Look at the bright side. In the forest here you don't have to wear your veil and squint so much."

Angjra tilted her head. "True."

"And the forest is good for something else too." Angjra gasped as Atela once again shed her clothes in only a few easy movements as they walked. The two older women heard the commotion and turned, stopping at seeing the naked felinoid. Vinlesu seemed as stunned as her daughter, but Hilfy just raised a reddish eyebrow. "You're a feralist?"

"Of course," Atela said. Ruffling her fur from her legs to her shoulder in one seeming unbroken wave as she stretched.

"I don't understand," Vinlesu said.

"I guess you could kind of call them a radical reaction to the Rakshasa Rebellion in the southern kingdoms about seventy years ago. The Rakshasas were corrupt felinoid tyrants who adopted the very worst "civilized" cruelties and decadence. I hear some of their baronies still survive."

Atela spat. "They are a great shame on our race. So we feralists think its better to follow the opposite path, to get back in touch with our animal nature, to more purely embrace the feral within us."

Vinlesu squinted at the felinoid. "And that means no clothes?"

Atela smiled toothily, hands on her canted hips. "Among other things, whenever we can get away with it. Why? Don't you like what you see?"

"I didn't say that," Vinlesu said with a laugh as she and Hilfy turned back to the trail. Atela laughed too, only to see Angjra frowning at her mother. If the felinoid didn't know better, she could almost swear the younger Drow was slightly...jealous?

They made good time. The weather was mild and fey, with white cottony clouds sliding lazily over the sun often enough to give the Drow even more relief from the brightness. That loud, smelly, obstinate animal they were using as a pack beast only balked twice, but thankfully Atela was able to get it going with just a whisper or two in its ear. Angjra was only slightly miffed that the others watched bemusedly as she struggled with the stubborn creature for nearly ten minutes, threatening to slay it and every overgrown canine like it, before the bemused and teasing felinoid bothered to help her.

The young Drow woman also had to wonder at how resentful she was of her mother when Vinlesu had been joking with Atela about the felinoid's nudity. Like she wanted to warn her mother off and manipulate Atela just for herself.

Angjra was not stupid. She was well aware she was attracted to Atela, and what she was feeling was honest jealousy. She was just surprised such emotions could be so strong! As an assassin, she had been taught to bury her feelings whenever possible, to function purely as an extension of her weapons and her mission. But this kind of emotional intensity was all so new to her.

The Felinoid walked a few paces ahead of her, talking almost constantly about this and that, occasionally looking back to get a terse response from the young Drow, just to make sure she was still listening. Angjra didn't mind being the last in their makeshift marching line, it gave her a chance to study Atela's nude form as she walked.

Angjra felt almost like one of the dirty-minded male elders, openly ogling a naked female. But Atela seemed unusually fascinating to the young Drow, almost oozing sexy confidence with every step. The swishing back and forth of her long feline tail as she walked, the taut rounded moons of her rump undulating rhythmically, was almost hypnotizing.

She regarded her mother and Hilfy. As Hilfy was an escaped slave, Vinlesu should by all rights have slain her on sight, as demanded by Drow law. But Angjra knew that would never happen. The fact that the two elf women had shared something special was so obvious even now, with the apparent ease they slipped into being around each other again. They still danced around politeness and kept their distance, but even Angjra, with all her inexperience in matters romantic, could tell that wall could crumble easily them soon enough.

But would that be a good thing? Hilfy could not return to the Dark Kingdoms with Vinlesu and avoid being executed on sight. Could her mother bear being separated from her great love a second time, especially if they become intimate again?

"I said, Night-Skin, did you want to talk about that now?" Atela was looking back at her, miffed at being ignored.

"Hm? Sorry, I was distracted."

The cat girl smirked, giving her hips an exaggerated wiggle as she walked. "I could tell. I said, did you want to talk about necromancers and druids now? You seemed curious about that back at the Laughing Spider."

"I still am, I admit. So is there a bond between Druids and necromancers?"

"That's it exactly," he mother chimed in, from only a few feet ahead of Atela. "Necromancy as you well know is about death and all its myriad facets. It is the basic source of our House's power. But Druidism, nature-worship, is about the protection and cultivation of life."

The four of them came into a small clearing. Hilfy, in the front of the line, called a stop so they could rest.

After tying off the mule and taking a swig of water, Angjra told her mother, "I know that. If you cultivate death and the druids cultivate life, I would have thought your two sects would be mortal enemies."

Hilfy's melodious chuckle filled the small field. "That's what many on both sides like people to think. But the truth is we're interdependent on each other. You can't have life without death..."

"...and you can't have death without life," Vinlesu finished for her. The two elf women smirked at each other.

"I don't understand. There are many more dead things in the world than living things. The rocks and caves of the Dark Kingdoms..."

Her mother smiled, shaking her head. "I'm afraid that's not the way it works, little shadow. Things that have never lived is the realm of the elementalists. Earth and wind and water shapers. A necromancer takes her power from the transition of life into something new. That is what death is, mostly. Not an ending, but a transformation. Animals die and become food for insects, and then mulch for plants. Plants die to become food for animals, or to feed other plants. The form and substance of their bodies are absorbed by other living things, becoming them."

"And when such as people die," Hilfy said, "we become something...other. A different kind of life than what we are now, following a different Path. But the important thing to understand is that this transition is absolutely essential for life to continue. Things must die and change so the great circle can go on. Life must always be renewed."

Vinlesu nodded. "Death is as natural as birth. Like birth and most of life, it is painful and traumatic, but your death will be just as important to the world as your life. Druids and necromancers are simply different sides of that same coin."

Angjra tilted her head as she often did, when deep in contemplation. "So where there's life, there's death also. Is that right? And where there is a great deal of life, there must also be a great deal of death. Hm. Is that why you said this forest was a place of power for you, mother?"

Vinlesu beamed a broad smile at her only offspring. "That's right! Truthfully, I can feel the death all around us even as our nature-worshipping companions can sense the life. Even now, if I concentrate, I can sense thousands of bugs being eaten, a squirrel dying in the jaws of a fox, a baby bird falling from its nest, even the horrific struggle of thousands of plants very, very slowly fighting viciously with each other for sunlight and water. And that's just what's close by."

Atela grinned. "So I can see why you two ended up together."

Hilfy and Vinlesu looked at each other, then at the at girl. "What do you mean?"

The felinoid laughed. "Isn't it obvious? You became a necromancer, Hilfy became a druid. Two sides of the same coin, as you said. Complimenting each other without even really being aware of it."

Both elf women suddenly blushed. They studiously avoided looking at each other. "Did I say something wrong?" Atela asked.

"Um..." Hilfy began, but decided to avoid the subject and all the complications that were sure to come with it. "The sun's getting low. I think we better set up camp. This clearing's as good as any."

The two older women took the first and second turns at a watch during the night. Angjra was glad for it. She was exhausted, and surprised herself by falling into a deep sleep almost as soon as she was in her sleeping roll.

Sometime later, Angjra felt something very warm and fuzzy sidle up to her in the night. A pleasant voice whispered in her ear that the night was cold. Angjra, still half asleep and very grateful for the warmth, simply snuggled back into the fuzzy body spooning hers.

She started awake a little later, with the realization that Atela was sleeping snuggled next to her, body molded against hers. The felinoid was soundly dozing, purring just slightly, with a three-fingered hand draped casually over Angjra's shift-covered waist.

It felt so...pleasant. The felinoid's soft body, her warmth, the gentle rise and fall of her bosom against the Drow's shoulder blades. She found herself catching hold of Atela's arm and sidling even deeper into the taller female's body, sighing despite herself at the feelings of contentment and affection that were washing over her.

Suddenly footsteps, and Atela being shaken awake. "your turn," her mother whispered at the felinoid.

The cat girl groaned softly and rose. Angjra pretended to still be asleep. Still, her bedroll felt very lonely, and just a little chilly, without Atela in it.

Angjra giggled as she felt a warm mouth nibbling her ear. She was about to mumble something playful when her ear was sharply bitten.

She sat up yelping, Pokra grumbling irritatedly at her shoulder for being so slow to wake up. "Wha-?"

"Shh!" Atela said a few feet from her, eyeing the dark woods around them with staff gripped in her hand. Her mother and Hilfy were already up, also quietly drawing their weapons.

The young Drow woman threw off her covers and was instantly on her feet. Her favored twin battle knives slid into her hands. "What is happening?" she whispered.

Atela tapped her nose. "I've scented a number of humans approaching," she whispered. "They're still a little ways off, but getting closer. I can't believe they were stupid enough to approach us from upwind."

"Or that they approached us at night," Vinlesu said. "Even Hilfy has better eyesight in the dark than they do."

"Are we sure they're all human?" Angjra asked.

"Oh yes," Atela said. "Not just any humans either. Jorton's crew, by their scent. They must have tracked us, looking for revenge."

"Idiots," Angjra hissed. She looked up and saw the silver orb of the moon hanging in the alien starlit sky. The humans must have thought that its dim light would put them on parity with their quarry. She stepped towards the woods. "I'll take care of them."

Her mother placed a hand on her arm. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"

She pulled her arm away, her eyes blazing in outrage at Vinlesu. "I'm Drow, aren't I?"

Her mother could only nod and lower her hand. Without another word, Angjra slipped into the darkness after her prey.

Vinlesu looked apprehensively into the darkness after her daughter, sucking her lip. Hilfy came up and lay a gentle hand on Vinlesu's shoulder, making her start. "I've heard its never easy, letting go of your children."

The night-skinned woman nodded shallowly. "I know she can do this. She was absolutely right that she is Drow and this is what she had trained so many decades for. But..." Her words died in her throat as conflicting emotions rose up.

"...But she's still your daughter," Hilfy finished for her.

She smiled thinly at her former body slave, thankful that someone understood.

Atela whimpered quietly in her throat. Vinlesu could see her tail swish anxiously behind her. The felinoid didn't seem afraid, exactly. Her animated ears twitched this way and that, following sounds both elf women couldn't perceive. Was the white-furred woman actually worried about Angjra as well? They had been snuggled up together in sleep...

Minutes passed, and they occasionally heard strangled cries of the dying, far off. Vinlesu counted the deaths she sensed. On seven, Angjra re-emerged from the forest, her hands bloody and blades dripping, but looking very smug and satisfied.

"Well?" Atela asked.

Angjra shrugged. "One got away. One thing humans can do with their longer legs is run faster than us, and I had no real chance of catching up to him. But the others all have their souls howling on their way to the Land of Shades."

The younger Drow whistled for Pokra. The baby wyvern bounded into view, and Angjra flicked him a dismembered eyeball, its long reddish tail of optic nerve trailing through the air. The wyvern snatched it mid-air, munching enthusiastically and murring near-orgasmically. "A little treat," Angjra chuckled.

Both Atela and Hilfy looked a bit unsettled by that, but her mother blithely returned to the business at hand. "Well done, daughter. I assume the spell-caster was the one you let get away?"

Angjra blinked in surprise. "I-I don't know. It could be. I wasn't really paying attention. All the humans looked pretty much alike to me."

Her mother glowered in anger. "I can't believe you! Didn't you pay attention about what to do with wizards? I hope you dismembered and beheaded him, or at the very least severed his major tendons!"

"But mother! They're only humans! Their wizards can't be that dangerous!"

"Are you joking? Humans are the most dangerous kind of wizard!" Her mother snarled, stabbing her finger back into the darkness. "No excuses! Now go back out there and make sure..."

She never got to finish her sentence as a bright orange flame burst to life a few hundred paces away in the dark forest. Dozens of trees surrounding it were instantly engulfed in flame, fifty-foot high torches in the night. They could all see a humanoid figure within the flames, coal-dark bones of his silhouetted skeleton in the dancing nimbus of flame. It took several agonized steps, lurching slowly toward them.

"Ooooh, crap," Atela said, ears hugging tight at her head, taking a few steps backward.

"But that can't be!" Angjra said. "I slit all their throats, stabbed half of them in their hearts!"

"Things are never that simple with sorcerers!" Vinlesu yelled. "I sense him dying...but he's using his death to fuel his spell!"

"A contingency spell! Many magic users have at least one that they spend years working on, an ultimate trump card. This one is using his to take his killer with him," Hilfy said matter-of-factly. "Even if he has to incinerate the entire forest to do it!"

The fire began surging ahead of the dying elementalist, entire trees bursting into flame one by one. The four women retreated, grabbing whatever they could, and were soon running through the forest, the grim flaming specter stumbling slowly behind them. For once their mule did not balk being moved swiftly. The very fire itself seemed to be the only thing keeping the grim specter of the dead elementalist mobile, giving unnatural energy to his charred bones.

After they put some distance between them and the fire-creature, they stopped to catch their breath. Even a few hundred yards away they could feel the heat of the rapidly-encroaching fire.

Atela turned toward the elf women. "Can't you two do something?"

Vinlesu, hands on her knees gulping air, shook her head. "Not directly. Fire has never been alive or dead. Its outside of our spheres of power. But I guess we have to try."

"Something's not right," Hilfy said. "I can feel it drawing on some external power from the forest. But its not the usual natural life force..."

"I can sense it too, " Vinlesu said. "But let's concentrate on the immediate problem, stopping it. Can't Druids summon rainstorms?"

"Not easily or quickly, even if I knew the spells for that. That fire will consume this entire forest before I could summon enough rain for it to do any good. And I won't be able to summon my power as the Council's Envoy until I reach the Grove."

"Damn." Vinlesu thought furiously. The two younger females fidgeted nervously, Pokra keening in naked fear. In the Dark Kingdoms, fires were rare but extremely deadly. Channeled and trapped smoke could kill and sicken many more in those vast caverns than the flames would ever touch. Thankfully, one of the few advantages the surface offered was plenty of open space for the smoke to rise out of the way.

She reached into her pack and removed the small black sphere. "Okay, Hilfy, I have an idea. But I'm going to need your help." She quickly outlined what she intended.

Vinlesu nodded. "It should work. I hope." She turned toward her daughter and the felinoid. "Just in case, you two will need to protect us from the elementalist in case he gets too close."

Both younger women nodded gravely, pulling out ranged weapons-a sling for Atela, throwing knives for Angjra-and holding them at the ready. All four turned to see the carbon-black skeletonized figure in the distance, outlined by orange flames, steadily stumbling closer.

Vinlesu held out the black sphere with one hand. Gingerly, almost reluctantly, Hilfy lay her fingers on it, no doubt remembering the object's grisly origins. The two magic-casters closed their eyes and began chanting. Quickly their arcane words synced together seamlessly, slowly building in volume.

Angjra felt the ground rumble, the trees surrounding the distant burning figure blurring and suddenly blackening against the bright orange-white of the flames, extinguishing them. Almost in a wave, the blackness spread, leaping from tree to tree and bush to bush.

The young Drow, and Atela watched with no small trepidation as the wave of magical transmutation washed over them. Thankfully, it seemed to have no effect on them, but instead seemed to writhe up and around all the plant life, trees and grass and foliage alike, shimmering momentarily with dark energies. With an electric crackle and powerful shudder, the plants transformed into grayish-black stone. The wave of transformation continued beyond them.

Angjra was no expert in forest or firecraft, but even she could see the strategy behind the spell. Transforming everything the fire could feed off into unburnable stone, choking it off from all sides. In another few breaths, she saw the flaming figure in the distance shudder and stagger, his licks of animating flame snuffing out one by one. Finally, all the fire keeping the skeleton mobile disappeared, and it crumpled to the ground.

Almost immediately afterward both elf sorceresses did the same, their chanting stopping as they slid to the now stony forest floor, gasping for breath. The black sphere slid from their hands to thud dully on the gray-black grass and leaves.

But their fingers still hovered near each other, and with another heartbeat they intertwined. Vinlesu and Hilfy glanced at each other, their eyes meeting. They grinned at in exhaustion and triumph, neither one wanting to withdraw their hand just yet.

Three days later they were approaching the edge of the Druids' Grove.

"I'm almost certain of it now," Hilfy was saying. "There was more going on with that fire-creature than just a contingency spell. I can still sense a faint but dark force permeating the forest around us, growing stronger the closer we get to the Grove. That human wizard must have been feeding on that."

Vinlesu nodded. "It is subtle, but oppressive. I think you're right. That spell was far too powerful for that human, even with his death fueling it."

"If he'd had that kind of power, he would have given us a much more serious challenge back at that tavern," Hilfy agreed. She turned back to the felinoid, just a few yards behind her. "Do you know anything about such a force in the forest, Atela?"

The felinoid pinned her ears back as if in fear. She hesitated just a bit too long in saying, "Um, you should ask the high druids. They would know more than I would."

The scrappy felinoid had many skills, but lying well was not one of them. The two elven women exchanged worried glances and by silent agreement chose not to pursue it just now.

The Drow sorceress could feel the barriers dropping between Hilfy and herself, the old familiarity they had once shared re-emerging. Hilfy's guard was slowly eroding around her former Mistress. Their former friendliness and warmth began re-emerging. Even after a century, they were still essentially the same people they had been in Hilfy's last few years in the Dark Kingdoms, their personalities still meshing well. More than once, Vinlesu had caught Hilfy watching her, and when their eyes met, the Wood Elf would only smile warmly before shyly looking away.

Such moments made Vinlesu's nostrils flare and heart swell as she could feel her emotions and body wanting to respond to such invitations. The way Hilfy moved, the way she talked and looked and hummed, as she used to while they lay in Vinlesu's bed in the Auvryant palace so long ago... There was definitely a pleasant sexual tension building between the two former lovers.

Yet, Vinlesu could tell the moment wasn't quite right yet for the final barrier between them to be breached. Hilfy still held back a bit, struggling with her feelings. Truthfully, so was Vinlesu.

Her daughter had been quieter than usual the last few days, acting dejected and moody. Not even Pokra's playfulness or the sight of Atela's admittedly enticing nudity could pull her out of it. She blamed herself for getting them all almost burned alive.

Well, Vinlesu reasoned, her daughter deserved to feel bad because of that. Not killing the human sorcerer properly had been sloppy. How many times had she drilled into that thick-skulled youngling how dangerous sorcerers could be?

The trail began to subtly change. The overgrowth on the deer path they followed slowly began to abate, opening up the trail wider and wider. Odder, the roots of the trees and plants lining the path began showing over the dirt, eventually criss-crossing to form a solid wooden carpeting for their feet as the walked. Within moments two huge oaks wove into view, one on each side of the path, crossing over each other high above to form a tall arch formed by twin yard-wide trunks.

"We're here," Atela announced, sidling ahead of the two elf women to take the lead. "The Grove."

Vinlesu thought it odd the Druids would have an arch to mark their settlement but no defensive wall. Then the Drow saw a wide but not very obvious barrier of intertwined bushes and trees and tall grass surrounding the settlement's wide clearing, a barrier that could conceal many varieties of traps both mechanical and magical. She was also a bit unnerved by the small army of crows and small mammals uniformly watching their approach from the trees with unblinking eyes.

Inside the settlement, Vinlesu was astonished by the homes and buildings she saw. All the structures had a flowing, organic look to them, made purely out of wood with few seams. Most of them had canopies of thick leaves, interwoven tightly like thatch roofs.

Vinlesu realized with a start that the houses actually were living trees, their trunks and branches and roots radically altered by druidic magic. Living houses. A few of the larger structures were multiple trees blended together to form large tube-like living structures that looked like they were used as storehouses and gathering halls.

She pursed her lips. Not quite as impressive as what Drow earth elementalists and stone shapers could do. But a surface dweller magic went, it was certainly did make an impression.

A number of the town's inhabitants nodded their heads in greeting, some even calling out Atela's name, but none approached as yet. Vinlesu noticed a number of the males staring openly at the tall felinoid, their expressions of bemusement and wonder hard to mistake. "Atela," she whispered. "Ah, perhaps it would be best if you covered up, unless there is some Druidic custom I'm unaware of"

Atela's eyes went wide. "Oh, crap! Its been just us girls for so long I kind of forgot."

"Atela!" called out a stern male voice. A tall dark-haired man approached them, carrying a staff more intricately carved than any of the others. The Druids of the enclave parted way for him.

"Kren," Atela hissed. "Look, this is not what it looks like..."

He regarded Atela's companions, frowning even more as he saw the two Drow. He turned back toward the felinoid, his expression souring like cream under a hot sun. "Its bad enough you bring ones such as these onto our most sacred soil, but do you have to constantly engage in such behavior as befitting a savage?" From the way his gaze dragged distastefully up her body, it was obvious her nudity was the subject of his derision. "Filthy, unwashed..."

Angjra had one of her daggers poised at Kren's throat between one eye blink and the next. A collective gasp went up from the surrounding druids, and both Hilfy and Vinlesu swore simultaneously in different tongues. Kren's eyes grew wide, sweat suddenly dotting his broad pale-skinned pate.

"You will not speak of Atela that way," the younger Drow said matter-of-factly. "Unlike you, she has proven herself worthy of my respect."

The arch druid's brows knitted in anger. He opened his mouth to speak when Hilfy quickly interjected, "Angjra, you shame the House Auvryant."

The younger Drow cut her eyes at the Wood Elf. "What? How dare you..."

"Look behind you."

Angjra glanced over her shoulder and paled. There, not a few feet away, were over a dozen long, thick tendrils of wooden roots that had somehow silently risen from the ground. They all tapered down to very sharp spear-like points, all aimed directly at her. They waved visibly like coiled snakes, ready to strike at any moment. The druids all around her drilled her with glowering stares.

"You shame your House by falling into such an easy trap. This is the Druids' place of power. Your threats really can't carry much weight here. You need to pick your fights more wisely."

Angjra grumped, then put away her knife. The wooden roots wavered for a moment, then retreated back into the soil. "Maybe. But it is not your place to reprimand me, Wood Elf."

Hilfy shrugged and moved to talk to the Arch Druid. Vinlesu came up to Angjra. "Wisdom is wisdom, no matter its source," her mother reminded her. "You would do well to listen to her. She just may have saved your life."

"Hilfy is not Jalithria," Angjra spat, referring to the Wood Elf slave who had been her nanny during her decades-long pubescence. Her daughter had been far closer to Jalithria than Vinlesu ever had been, even though Jalithria was her body slave for decades longer than Hilfy.

"If it had been my choice, she would have been," Vinlesu said, her expression unreadable. She went to go join the Druids in conversation.

"Hey, for what its worth," Atela said, reluctantly pulling on a shift, the hem of the over-sized shirt falling to her mid-thigh. "I appreciate you sticking up for me."

Angjra smiled at the felinoid. "I was glad to do it." Suddenly a bit self conscious, aware she was smiling dumbly at Atela, she went and joined her mother talking to the Druids.

"A misunderstanding," Hilfy was saying. "That's all it was. Angjra is still young, as her people measure such things. In the Drow lands..."

"These are not Drow lands, Envoy," the male said. "We will tolerate them for your sake, but any more incidents like that..."

Hilfy nodded. "I understand. I'll take full responsibility for my companions."

Kren frowned. "Very well. But there is really little reason for you to have come, Envoy. The problems that may have been reported to you were little doubt over-blown..."

Atela gave a disapproving grunt. Angjra glanced to see her biting her lip, wanting to say more, but holding back. What was being concealed here?

"And who are our guests here?" came a pleasant voice from behind the Arch-Druid.

All turned to see an older human, looking to be about sixty or so, approaching the small group. He was balding with a snow-white ledge of neatly-trimmed hair level with his ears. He was a bit plump, and when he smiled its split his ruddy features into a hundred laugh lines. Unlike the other druids, who wore robes of browns and greens and blacks, the newcomer wore robes of impeccable white.

Kren bowed perfunctorily. "Elrohir," he said with a courtesy he had yet to show any of the females. "I was about to take them to you, but there were some, er, complications. The younger Drow became threatening when I berated Atela for her lack of dress."

The white-robed druid laughed heartily. "Is that what the commotion was all about? Kren, you can be such a prude, sometimes. Most men would be very appreciative of such a lovely young thing wanting to share her beauty with the world." He grinned broadly and winked saucily at Atela.

The felinoid frowned, looking very displeased, but bowed as Kren had. "I, um, thank you for such a compliment, High Druid."

Hilfy stepped forth, bowing also. "I am the Envoy from the Council of Druids, sir. I hope I am welcomed in your Grove."

He nodded. Angjra noted that his eyes very rapidly roamed over Hilfy's body appreciatively. This was one nature-worshipper obviously too preoccupied with fertility. "By the sacred Earth-Mother, I welcome you to our hearth and home, Envoy."

Kren and Elrohir led them to one of the nearby lodges. Inside, a small group of female druids-the High druid's personal mistresses, from what Angjra gathered-quickly prepared them a filling meal. Afterward, after much small talk, they sat around the glowing coals of the central hearth fire passing a skin of sweet apple wine among them.

Formalities past, Hilfy settled down to business. "So tell me the problems your Grove here is having, Elrohir. Kren believes they are nothing special."

The white-robed man flicked a dismissive hand at his second. "Kren is a good man, but he believes we should be able to take care of our problems ourselves. But this current problem has become far more than we can handle. Which is why we had to call for help from the Council."

Kren grumped. "I am not sure we should be talking about this with outsiders present. Hilfy, of course, as she is of our order. But the Drow..."

"The Envoy has vouched for them. That is good enough for me. Be a little more trusting" The High Druid turned toward Hilfy. "The problem, miss, is our forest's Spirit Stone."

Vinlesu raised her snow-white eyebrow, intrigued despite herself. "Spirit Stone?"

"A focal point of magic Druids place at the center of a forest," Hilfy explained. "It gathers ambient magical energy from all the life around it, storing it within itself. The Druid community as a whole calls upon the Spirit Stone's magic at times to for great works, such as constructing this settlement you see, or extinguishing a forest fire, or changing the course of a river, and so on."

Elrohir said, "Ours has been corrupted by some unknown power. Its magic is denied us. We think something is buried near it, some unknown evil we were unaware of, and has been using the spirit stone to protect itself. Your two predecessors died trying to purify it."

"That's very curious," Hilfy said. "They were prepared the same as myself. I wonder what power could possibly have done that to them?"

Vin raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, prepared the same?"

"An Envoy for the Council of Druids is empowered to act in their stead. As such, he or she is entitled to call upon certain spells and resources of the combined Groves under the Council's jurisdiction. Those spells were activated in me the moment I entered this Grove."

"Meaning," Kren interjected, "that if the situation warrants it, she has had spells cast on her that can call upon other druidic Spirit Stones in the world, even all of them if need be, to counter certain threats. But she can't use the power lightly. The Council can easily block the spells if need be, and misuse of the power carries grave penalties."

Vinlesu wondered, if the other Envoys had access to that kind of power, why didn't they used it to counter whatever was corrupting the stone? Perhaps they had been struck down before they could call upon it, or they had used it and it hadn't mattered. Either way, that was not a good omen.

From more talk with the High Druid, they learned that apparently the Spirit Stone's power manifested itself as an army of resurrected undead creatures that fanatically attacked anyone who got close enough. Finally the red-haired wood elf nodded. "Very well. Obviously, I need to go to this Spirit Stone and neutralize it with the Council's power. I'll need probably at least half a dozen of your men to escort..."

The High Druid sadly shook his head. "I'm afraid that's unlikely. We've already lost seven of our number helping the last two Envoys, as well as four others before that just investigating what was wrong. I don't think anyone here would be willing to try to brave that hazard again. But you might be able to find some mercenaries in Linden who could be persuaded to help."

"She won't need them," Vinlesu said. "I'll go with her."

Everyone turned to regard her with surprise. Elrohir blinked, taken aback. "That's very brave of you, but I don't think..."

"I am Drow necromancer, and a well-experienced one at that. Undead creatures are my specific sphere of influence. I might be able to deal with these undead much more easily than any Druid."

Elrohir looked her over with a critical eye. He seemed angry for a moment, but then his expression mellowed. Finally, slowly, he nodded. "Very well. You may accompany the Envoy..."

"Not for free!" Angjra interjected.

"Angjra!" her mother hissed at her.

"No, mother! I can understand you wanting to spend time with your old...friend...but if they expect us to risk ourselves for them than it is only fair that we receive compensation for it!"

Elrohir laughed. "Well, that's certainly true. I take it you expect to accompany your mother and the Envoy to the Spirit Stone, then? Very well. We had fifty gold crowns set aside for hiring manpower from Linden..."

"Five hundred!" Angjra demanded.

"What!" Kren shouted, outraged. "Even if we wanted to pay that ridiculous amount, we don't have that kind of coinage here!"

Angjra crossed her arms and tilted her chin up just a bit in a haughty expression. "We are Drow elite! Five hundred crowns is a bargain for our services!"

Elrohir frowned, but Kren was on his feet, balling his fists angrily. "If that what you want, than fine! Five hundred crowns it is! You probably won't live to collect it anyway! 'Drow elite' means nothing here, and it certainly won't mean anything to those monsters when they're gnawing on your 'elite' Drow entrails!"

"Kren!" Elrohir snapped. "Apologize!"

The arch druid cut eyes at his superior, but instead of answering, just stalked out of the lodge.

Hilfy turned toward Vinlesu. "Are you sure about this? You aren't obligated to help."

The elder Drow woman reached out and placed her hand on the Wood Elf's. "Its the least I owe you."

"And I'm going with my mother," Angjra asserted. "We Drow must stick together in these alien lands."

"And you're going to need a guide who knows the territory," Atela interjected. She laughed. "I guess we four are going to be together for a while yet."

That night the Druids threw them all a feast.

It was a large, open-air affair with a large central fire pit over which they roasted a wild boar. More than just the hooded Druids she had seen earlier, but their families as well, now that they knew the strangers were not a threat. The two Drow women seemed to be especially popular with the children, who kept daring each other to sneak up and touch them or their things.

Angjra was startled to see some representatives of what could only be races of the Fae. As a dweller of the Dark Kingdoms, such magical denizens of the deep forest seemed even more alien than the Druids. One was a burly and dangerous-looking centaur warrior. He wore highly stylized leather armor on both his human and horse halves, with bronzed gauntlets and a large sword sheathed over his muscular shoulders. On his back rode a half dozen slightly-glowing pixies, who seemed to be having some sort of verbal argument amongst themselves. To his side stood what Angjra at first took to be some sort of odd race of elf, until she saw the very deep green-colored skin and hair that looked to be made of strings of soft oak leaves. A Dryad, a very rare sight indeed for a cave-dwelling Drow.

Of course it made sense that the Druids would have contact with the Fae, if any contingent of the civilized surface races would. But it did make Angjra wonder at just the huge diversity of races that must exist on the surface. How could they all co-exist without killing each other? If that many rivals still existed in the Dark Kingdoms, the Drow would never rest until they were all exterminated or enslaved.

Her musings quickly died when Atela emerged from a nearby lodge wearing a skimpy dancer's outfit. Angjra had gotten used to seeing the felinoid nude, but appraising Atela clad only in a halter and a barely-there g-string, the young Drow could do little more than gulp air. The dark patches of shiny fabric on her friend's light fur seemed to draw the eye to her most naughty curves in a way nudity never could.

Kren caught the felinoid just at the lodge's entrance, and the two argued in low tones for a few minutes. Atela angrily pulled away from him, scowling, but instantly brightening when she spotted the young Drow. She deliberately slunk past the Drow girl without stopping to talk, but did give Angjra a very heart-melting, inviting smile.

Musicians began to play, lyres and drums and flutes, and other females joined Atela around the broad fire. The women began dancing and gyrating to the music, joyful rapture on their faces. Someone close to Angjra mentioned something about the dance representing the vigor of life that Druids worshipped, but all Angjra could see was Atela's sinuous body undulating in the soft orange light, the pretty felinoid smiling back at her the whole time.

Hilfy chuckled, watching Angjra. The Drow girl next to her completely ignored her when she had tried to explain the ritual importance of the dance. "Oh, she has it bad," she whispered to Vinlesu.

Vinlesu saw the look of naked desire and sexual wonder on her daughter's face, a first as far as she knew. Emotions struggled deep within the Drow sorceress, at once proud at seeing her daughter so grown up and also anxious at the pitfalls such desire could bring her only offspring.

Odd, that she had been far less worried about Angjra's first kills than about her daughter's potential first love. Why could motherhood never be easy?

"Angjra is coming of age," she quietly told her former body slave. "She may do as she wishes."

She felt Hilfy's gentle hand on the small of her back, rubbing softly, comfortingly. "And what do you wish, Vinlesu?"

She leaned into the hand, thankful for the comfort. "I wish my daughter could have stayed a little girl for another hundred years. How could she have grown up so fast?"

Pokra squawked, apparently catching the infectious energy of the celebration, and launched himself from Angjra's slim shoulder to Atela's broad furry one. Atela laughed and scritched the small wyvern under his chin without slowing down her motions at all. The pseudo-lizard squawked happily.

With the small wyvern wrapped around her shoulders, the tall Felinoid danced closer to Angjra, really going all out in the dance, shaking her hips provocatively. Many of the surrounding Druids, the males especially, whistled and cheered her on. Even the visiting Centaur joined in.

The music stopped abruptly, and Atela's movements ground to a halt with a flourish. Gasping heavily for breath, she smiled at the younger Drow. Angjra smiled back and when the felinoid held out her hand, she eagerly took it. They walked away from the firelight, chased here and there by whistles and light-hearted teasing from the crowd.

Vinlesu took a step forward to follow them, then stopped herself. What was she doing?

She felt fingers enclosing her own, very familiar in their shape and feel. "Come on," Hilfy said. "I think we should leave them to themselves."

Vinlesu nodded, surprised at how tightly she held the Wood Elf's fingers. "Very well. I suppose we could eat."

Hilfy shrugged. "I've arranged for some food to be brought to our cabin."

Vinlesu raised a suspicious brow. "'Our' cabin?"

Hilfy smirked. "Well, I am the Envoy from the Council, so I rate a whole lodge to myself for my stay here." She leaned in close to Vinlesu, and nibbled and licked at the Drow's earlobe. The Drow gasped in surprise.

"Besides," Hilfy whispered. "I think you'd feel better if we can make you forget a little about being a mother, just for a little while. And I know the perfect way to do that, if you're willing...Mistress."

She pulled back from Hilfy, the Wood Elf chuckling at Vinlesu's surprise. The Drow eventually nodded hesitantly and they left the celebration hand-in-hand.

Angjra wasn't even aware of how she and Atela had ended up kissing that first time. Atela had led them over beside a stream, spread a few blankets stashed under a nearby tree, and the next thing Angjra knew their bodies were sliding together, lips pressed tightly, tongues dancing, hands exploring everywhere. Pokra, confused by the constant interbody motion, flapped up to a nearby branch to wait out whatever the odd bipedal mammals were up to.

It was clumsy and awkward and delicious and supremely exciting all at the same time. Atela's scent, her soft femininity mixed with the taut steeliness of her muscles, even her larger size and the very slight roughness of her tongue against her smooth skin were things Angjra found herself hungering for.

Atela began kissing down her dark neck. "I've...I've never done this before..." the Drow warned.

The felinoid smiled. "We'll take things slowly, then." She pulled Angjra's open collar aside and nipped the soft charcoal flesh playfully, causing the young Drow to gasp aloud. She pulled the string tying it together, and with a few deft tugs the shift was soon lying on the dark forest floor.

Angjra shivered at the cold forest air on her bare skin, then shuddered in pleasure as she felt Atela's rough tongue rasp over her hardened nipple. The contrast between heat and cold was incredible. She wrapped her hands around Atela's furry head to press her closer to her modest midnight-skinned breasts.

Atela's hands circled lower on her body, over her tummy and down her legs, orbiting her thighs through the thick Wyvern leather of her leggings. When the felinoid finally cupped her sex, Angjra thought for sure her knees were going to buckle. Luckily, her taller, stronger partner held her up easily, an arm snaking around the small of her back.

She was lowered down to the blankets, Atela quickly stripping off her leggings. For the first time since she was a young girl, she was fully nude in front of someone who wasn't a slave. Self consciously crossed her arms over her breasts as Atela, on her knees, looked her over like a lion sizing up a gazelle.

Angjra could hear the felinoid's soft purr deep in her chest as she leaned forward to kiss the Drow lightly on the lips again. "You're my kitten now," Atela whispered. "And I'm going to take very good care of you, little kitten."

One of the felinoid's fingers slicked over Angjra's pink slit. The young Drow cried out, the sensation so intense on her sensitive flesh that she clamped her legs together hard, trapping Atela's hand. Atela licked soothingly at her ear even as she wiggled her digit ever so slightly on the girl's folds. Angjra's hips undulated up and down against the hand on pure instinct. "Oh gods..."

"Well, aren't you a sensitive little kitty," Atela cooed. "Just relax. Open your legs for me, and it will get even better."

Hesitantly, Angjra did so. To her surprise, Atela suddenly shifted down and she could feel the felinoid's long, agile tongue tickling her nether lips, feeling even hotter there than against her nipples. Atela's furry cheeks nestled against her inner thighs as the tongue began lapping at her sex.

Angjra writhed, filling her clutching fists with blanket cloth as she fought to stay still against the mounting fire deep within her. Intense tickle-sparks of pleasure shot throughout her limbs. All those nights by herself, pillow between her legs, had never been like this!

The felinoid's tongue spiraled into her depths, apparently anxious to taste every square inch of her inner walls. The Drow girl thrashed about, the feelings indescribable. When Atela worked her way up to her taut, aching clitoris, Angjra lost all conscious thought. She became nothing but a grunting sexual animal, climaxing hard against the tongue on the center of her sexual soul.

She gasped through her shuddering after shocks, barely having time to catch her breath when she felt her feline lover shift over her and furry thighs brush each of her long pointed ears. Atela mrowled loudly in arousal. "That was beautiful, kitten. But its my turn now. Lick me."

Atela's yowling cries in the next few minutes were the sweetest music Angjra ever heard.

Two feminine clefts ground together, pink lip to pink lip, the soft shushing sounds of their wet movements on one another intermixing with the soft, sweaty moans of their owners. One was framed in midnight-dark skin, the other by the pale pink of a surface-dweller.

Vinlesu and Hilfy lay on the hay-laden cot, their legs scissored together, their sexes kissing. They held each others' hands, as much as to hold the each other in position as for comfort, as they shimmied their glistening folds together.

Deep tremors started in Hilfy, building quickly, and seemed to transfer over to Vinlesu as if they were sharing one body. The heat within their bodies built until it was unbearable, until they both reached their climax all at once. Two voices cried out as one in shivering, writhing ecstasy.

They both puffed heavily afterward, neither daring to move just yet, their exposed flesh still pressed closely together. Hilfy smiled into Vinlesu's eyes from behind sweat-soaked, fire-red locks. "That was...incredible, Mistress."

Vinlesu barely heard her, an aftershock still tingling in the tips of her fingers and toes. Dark Spirits, it had been so long...that dalliance with that male harlot had been nothing like this. "Yes... Yes it was...Pet."

Hilfy shifted and lay her body alongside the Drow's, resting her head in the crook of Vinlesu's shoulder. The necromancer sighed contentedly. "Are you sure you don't mind me calling you Pet?"

"I thought I would," Hilfy admitted. "But it really sounds right. Just like me calling you Mistress. I guess if we're alone in bed together, its okay. In fact, I think I might prefer it."

"As do I," Vinlesu said, surprising herself with how much she meant it. It wasn't until this very moment, holding Hilfy in her arms, that she realized how much had been missing form her life for so many decades. She had thought she had been content, that being a mother and a sorceress were fulfillment enough. But Hilfy was showing her just how deep the chasm of loneliness in her had become.

After almost a century apart, was it possible to fall in love with someone again after only so short a time together again?

Hilfy snuggled closer, and Vinlesu gathered the blanket edge in her hand and threw it over them both. She tucked it close, wanting her partner to feel warm and safe.

Druid and Necromancer, Drow Elf and Wood Elf, Mistress and Pet. Forever at opposite ends but joined fast, like faces on the same coin.

She kissed Hilfy tenderly on her forehead. As it should be.

The next morning, sunlight pouring in through the trees, Angjra woke wrapped in blankets. She reached for Atela and a brief moment of panic ensued when she felt the felinoid gone.

Then she heard splashing, and turned over to see Atela by the nearby stream, dunking clothes into the water and wringing them out. The snow-furred female bent over low almost double, her feline-like flexibility readily apparent. Angjra leaned up on her elbow and smirked as she admired the view. The gates of paradise, she remembered some poet calling such a sight. Remembering the raw the night before, she finally understood the reference.

Atela looked back over her shoulder, not bothering to straighten as she smiled at the Drow. "Good Morning, kitten."

Angjra felt a warmth deep within her blossom whenever Atela called her that. "Good Morning yourself, Momma Cat," she teased with a light chuckle. Atela shaking her rump enticingly only made her laugh more, as well as spark a sudden surge of desire within her. The feel and taste of Atela's warm, yielding sex was still very fresh on her lips. Well, an new initiate or not to such practices, a high-born Drow does not subtly hint at her wants. "When you're finished with that, you can come here, and I can make you purr again..."

Atela smiled brightly, but shook her head as she hung the last of the cloth garments on a nearby tree branch. "I'd love that, kitten, but we promised to accompany Hilfy to the Forest's Heart. They'll probably want to set off as early as possible."

Angjra shrugged. "Perhaps. But those clothes will take a while to dry, will they not? I do not think we would do well to antagonize that Kren again, walking boldly naked about the Grove..."

The felinoid blinked at her, thinking, then nodded and slid next to Angjra in the folds of the blankets. White furred and dark-skinned breasts slid against each other, both females moaning low. "You're right. We should have time for at least something quick..."

"Where is that worthless excuse for a daughter?" Vinlesu growled, pulling the straps on the pack-horse tight. The horse was specially trained and enchanted by the Druids to be able to handle stressful situations well.

Vinlesu had also made arrangements for the Druids to look after Pokra during their mission. The baby wyvern had sought her out in the night, obviously bored with whatever Atela and Angjra were doing. Luckily, the Druids were highly experienced at tending animals, and Pokra took an instant liking to his temporary caregivers.

"Don't you remember what you were like with your first lover?" Hilfy chided. "You've told me about it enough. You and that Drow boy did it twenty times in just your first week..."

"We're not talking about me, we're talking about my daughter," Vinlesu hissed. "No one was depending on me back then for what could be a vital..."

"Here they come," Hilfy said. Atela and Angjra wove into view from out of the shadows of a thick copse of trees, hand in hand. They looked odd, the large white-striped felinoid so close to the short, dark-skinned elf. A truly unlikely pair.

"Good morning," Angjra said, with a happy lilt in her voice. "Sorry about being late, mother, but..."

Vinlesu scowled. "Just gather your things and let's get going. We want to be there by nightfall so the sun won't impede our vision. We wasted enough time already."

Vinlesu caught Atela alone for a moment while the other two elves were talking with Kren. Silently, with the felinoid watching, she bent down and grabbed up a small flower in her hand. She locked eyes with her daughter's new lover, glancing very briefly in Angjra's direction then back again. In an instant she leached the entire life-force out of the plant, reducing it to a blackened husk that she crushed to dust in her hand. Atela's eyes widened. The message was understood.

Vinlesu had been very tolerant and even friendly toward Atela since they had met. But under no circumstances would she tolerate the felinoid hurting her daughter. A Drow is dangerous enough; a Drow mother protecting her offspring had no equal in fury in the known world.

The stars twinkled brightly overhead through gaps in the canopy as they slowly, cautiously approached the heart of the forest. New intimacies and new tensions forged among the four the night before had made the trek during the day a mostly quiet and strained one.

An oppressive presence in the thick woods seemed to press down on them, dredging lurid tongues of putrefaction through their souls.

Even the younger females with their limited magical abilities could feel the growing alien power nearby. Their elders were clearly on edge. For the first time in many years, Angjra saw just a small glint of true fear in her mother's eyes. That only made her all the more nervous about their coming task, for she could imagine only a very few things in this world that could make her mother genuinely afraid.

"This is worse than I thought," Hilfy said quietly. "Look at those trees."

They all glanced nervously at the surrounding vegetation. The trees weren't dead, but they didn't look quite alive, either. Their leaves, if you could call them that, looked stunted and shriveled, and a number of them oozed a brownish-red sap very reminiscent of blood. Their trunks were twisted, the patterned weft of their wood warped wildly as if the plants were writhing very slowly from intense pain.

Angjra shuddered. Trees had been alien enough to her whenever she came to the surface. But to see them so perverted... "What's causing that? The magic..."

"Not just the magic," Hilfy said, holding her staff before her. Nothing had approached them yet, but the deeper they penetrated into the benighted forest, the more they saw shapes shamble about in the deep shadows of the night, just beyond the range of their night vision. "Normal magic would not affect the trees, not like that. This is an unnatural power, apart from life or death or perhaps even this realm..."

"Beyond the kingdom?" Atela asked.

"No," Hilfy said gently. "By 'realm' I mean the worlds beyond ours, the planes of existence alongside ours but whose nature we can only guess at. Only a few powerful wizards have ever dared probe such realms, and of those only a handful have come away with their lives and sanity intact."

The felinoid shook her head. "Um... Tell you what, just show me what to hit. I'll let the wizards worry about the magic and other-realm stuff."

They all felt a sudden shift in the unseen forces around them. The air turned chill, the night seemed to grow measurably darker. "It knows we're here," Vinlesu whispered.

Moans, angry and low, sounded throughout the forest of twisted trees. A wall of shambling, half-decomposed figures lurched toward them from out of the shadows.

"Undead!" Hilfy hissed. She turned toward her lover. "Vinlesu?"

The elder Drow woman unleashed several words of power. The cadaverous humanoids stopped in their tracks, but only for a brief heartbeat. Vinlesu tried again, with similar results. "Damn!" She hissed. "My necromancy isn't working! They're beyond my power!"

As the creatures came closer, Vinlesu could guess the reason for their immunity. They didn't seem like something that had once been alive, but rather patchwork humanoid creatures hastily assembled by a madman who stopped with only a skeleton and a few organs slapped into place here and there. They possessed a form of half-life, but one different from the one that necromancy had sway over.

Angjra's sword flew into her hand. Better to have a long-reach weapon against such foes, so her battle knives stayed sheathed for now. "Guess we'll just have to fight them the old fashioned way."

The two other elves just nodded, but Angjra noticed Atela with her tail tucked low between her legs as she stared at the coming wall of pseudo-zombies. Angjra and Vinlesu had been born into a family renowned for the necromantic arts, and Hilfy had spent decades in the Dark Kingdoms, so they were all used to seeing shambling animated corpses. But to Atela this was all very new, and more than a little frightening.

Angjra hovered closer to her felinoid lover. "Relax," she said casually. "Aim for their spines and hips and knees. They still need intact bones to move, so remove the support structure and they collapse."

Atela nodded, setting her lips in a grim line.

The shambling corpses came at them in staggered waves. Not quite at random, but not quite fully organized either. They were slow-moving and jerky, mostly easy targets if one avoided their clumsy lunges and swipes. But there were a lot of them and despite the living foursome's battle skills, fatigue threatened to become a real danger.

"We have to get to the Spirit Stone!" Hilfy called back to the others, expertly tripping one corpse back into another, then using two powerful thrusts with the end of her shaft to crack their spines while they were entangled.

"There's too many!" Atela yelled over the din of clashing weapons and unearthly groans. "There's no way to get through! Can't you two do some magic?"

"We were hoping to save that for the Spirit Stone-but you're right," Vinlesu said, dodging back after a few long-armed swiped. She pulled out her darkened magical sphere. "That will be useless unless we can get there."

She held the globe high, invoking inhuman words of power that were ancient when the first elf blinked his eyes at the sky. The dark sphere pulsed again and again, almost as if it were some otherworldly heart, then erupted into a wave of dark energy.

The magic left the elves and the felinoid untouched, but it had a devastating effect on the pseudo-undead nearby. When touched by the sorcerous wave, they froze for a moment, then collapsed into piles of immobile organs and bones.

Vinlesu gasped for breath and collapsed herself for a moment, Hilfy catching her at the last moment. "G-give me a second," the Drow sorceress said. "Channeling that kind of power can be draining."

"We can't afford to dawdle," Hilfy said. "You've bought us time, but I can sense reinforcements are already gathering. We need to get to the Spirit Stone now while we can!"

Angjra helped her mother to her feet, and soon the four of them were running through the sickly twisted trees, dodging and leaping over haphazard piles of bones. Hilfy was the first to spot their goal.

The Spirit Stone was a small rough-hewn rock pillar, much like the many elven standing stones seen throughout the civilized kingdoms, inscribed on all sides by dark, carved runes.

"That's it?" Angjra asked. The object seemed far too mundane to be causing so much trouble. She turned toward her mother and Hilfy, only to see the two women almost as pale as Atela's fur. "What is it?"

"You don't have the magic skill to sense it," her mother said. "But what the Spirit Stone is tapped into, the portal its opening-its beyond words. Inhuman. We have to end this horror now, while we can."

"Can it be that awful? You've looked into the afterlife..."

Vinlesu shook her head. "Those are the Paths into the Land of Shadows that are meant for us, daughter. But there are many Paths into the next life in this universe, some traversed by creatures we can barely comprehend. Sometimes, when a sorcerer of true power dies, he can avoid the usual Paths and travel...sideways, I guess you can say. Onto other Paths."

"It can't be that..."

"I can catch fleeting glimpses of the other side, momentary rents in the weave of creation to my sorcerous eye. The creatures on that other Path-they are these hideous giant reptilian-looking monsters. Like dragons, but also very insect-like. But they're being stolen away and forced into our continuum. Forced into vaguely human shells. Those were all the 'undead' we're fighting, our realm trying to force them into bodies that work in our continuum. Our world is as much a hell for them as theirs would be for us."

An inhuman roar shook the countryside. Trees crashed aside as a massive shape smashed its way through the forest toward them. All four women moved as one to face the new threat.

On the other side of the broad clearing emerged a vast creature out of nightmare. Measuring over thirty feet from snout to tip, it resembled, vaguely, the skeleton of a dragon, complete with lizard-like skull and the thin bone frames of wings.

But upon close reexamination, one could see the bones were black and chitinous, joined together in ways that seemed to make little sense. The flesh it supported in life must have been woven to it in ghastly ways, with a haphazard arrangement of organs that seemed barely held in by skinless connective tissue.

"What is that?" Atela hissed.

"One of the creatures from the other Path!" Hilfy said. "He must have made it through partially intact!"

The thing roared and launched itself at them. They scattered, just missing being crushed under it scabrous, scimitar-sized claws.

Angjra fought down the raw terror churning her gut and the instinct to flee headlong in panic. Instead, she dodged and weaved through the creature's wild movements, and stabbed at one of its legs with all the might she could muster. Her blades bounced off, barely nicking the onyx-colored substance of its bones. Atela leapt high, coming down hard with her staff at the base of the creature's neck. She did even less damage than Angjra did.

The creature flexed, batting Angjra to the side easily with a casual brush of its legs. She went sprawling even as she saw the bone dragon snap at Atela with a mouth full of serrated black teeth. The felinoid barely twisted out of the way in time, the bone-dragon's maw scraping away a line of fur and skin from her side. Her new lover screamed and crumpled to the ground in agony, holding her bleeding flank.

Before Angjra was even aware of her actions, she had leapt to her feet and was pulling Atela away from under the monster. But the felinoid was too big and in too much pain to move quickly. The creature loomed high over them, the glowing ember of its eyes sparking with murderous hatred.

The monster suddenly convulsed and screamed in pain as a wave of sorcerous energy enveloped it from behind. Angjra turned to see Hilfy and Vinlesu both in the midst of casting spells. The younger females had bought the sorceresses enough time to bring their magic into play.

The creature distracted, Angjra dragged Atela to the shelter of a nearby knot of trees. "Gods, that hurts," the felinoid hissed, the hand on her ripped side awash in crimson.

"Hold still," The Drow said, removing the Felinoid's hands to inspect the wound. The gash was long and ragged, but thankfully wasn't deep. "I know some healing spells. Don't move."

"But...your mother and Hilfy...we need to..."

Angjra shook her head as she lay an open palm on the bleeding gash. "You saw how useless we were against that thing. Let the magic-users fight it. We would just be in their way, now." She began chanting softly. Her hand glowed, slowly knotting the flesh and fur under it.

The healing spell only took a dozen heartbeats. Confident that Atela's bleeding had stopped and the worst of the pain was ebbing, they were able to turn their attention back to the battle. Things were not going well. Hilfy and Vinlesu stood back to back in the clearing by the standing stone, their chests heaving with effort. The dragon creature stalked warily around them in a broad circle, its chitinous bones cracked and hissing smoke from wounds, looking for an opening. Angjra could see the two elf women talking low to each other, almost arguing, desperate to hatch out a strategy.

Finally, Hilfy stepped forward toward the monster, her hands shooting forward. A sorcerous wave of destruction emanated from them like a lightning strike. Everything its path blasted into dust; trees, rocks, and corpses alike. Angjra gasped at the sheer raw power of the enchantment. The Druid must have been drawing upon the potent magic of the other Spirit Stones of her order, as she had said she had been empowered to do as the Council's Envoy.

Impossibly, the bone dragon resisted even such power. It snarled and dug in against the blast wave of magic, like it was fighting a strong wind. Outer flakes and granules of its cartilage flew off, but it stood intact as the spell died away.

Vinlesu hadn't been idle during Hilfy's assault. She took out her black sphere again, shouting words of power against the din until the ghastly orb began pulsing with an unearthly light. She screamed and threw it at the nearby Spirit Stone.

The sphere impacted and disintegrated into thousands of glowing particles that covered the Druidic artifact. The Spirit Stone fractured down its middle, glowing red hot as if it had just been removed from a forge. Then suddenly it faded from view, disappearing with a pop as if it had never existed.

All at once the bone dragon stopped roaring and collapsed into a large heap of inanimate bones. The groaning in the forest all around them ceased as well. The only sound was the foursome's own belabored breathing.

The two sorceresses also collapsed to their knees, holding each other, shivering in near exhaustion.

"That's what all of this was about?" Angjra asked, kicking at the bleached white bones sticking out of the ground.

"Somewhat," Hilfy replied. They had spent a good hour recovering and binding their wounds when Hilfy announced that she sensed the evil was not completely dead. It had just gone dormant. Vinlesu sacrificing her dark sphere had closed the doorway to the other Path, but the power that had opened it in the first place remained. After some searching, they found what looked to be a mummified skeleton, frozen in place as it had tried to claw its way out of the ground. Unlike the other pseudo-corpses, this one looked truly human, if not quite fully alive. "Its been here a long time, dead but not, working at building its power so it could rejoin the living."

Vinlesu nodded. "A powerful magic user of some kind. He opened the Path sideways when he died, to avoid whatever judgement awaited him in the life after this. He must have sensed that the power we carried was a real threat, so he tried to accelerate the resurrection process before we destroyed the Spirit Stone he was drawing power from."

Hilfy shook her head. "Not just any magic-user." She toed the hanging skull, bending it back to exposed the darkened sigils tattooed into its dried, leathery forehead. "A Druid. A dark one. But this body he was generating for himself would have been only a shell. I bet his soul still remains somewhere in this world, riding another life as an anchor.

"We can destroy this body but he'll remain a danger as long as his spirit holds on to that anchor," she continued. "He'll be trapped in that body for now, but as soon as he can work the proper magic he'll be able to move on to other vessels. We have to find it and kill it before that happens, to make sure this doesn't happen again."

"You mean that this, um, Dark Druid is possessing someone, like a ghost?" Angjra asked. "Who?"

Hilfy shrugged. "It could be anyone, really. But chances are the shell is close by, and they tend to stick within their own gender if they have a choice. So it will probably be male, judging by this skeleton. Someone in power in the local community would help, too."

They made a large pyre in the middle of the Spirit Stone clearing and burned what remained of the Dark Druid's mummified body, then pulverized and scattered the ashes on the wind.

Dawn approached. They were all exhausted and tried to get some sleep. But in that haunted, twisted place, so quiet now that they could not even hear wind whisper through the trees, rest proved very elusive.

The four eventually returned to the Druid's Grove weary but triumphant. The Druid community greeted them with cheers, and were anxious to hear what had transpired. Atela, very proud to show off her wound as proof of their ferocious battle, was more than happy to oblige.

Pokra, sad and miserable without his owner, perked up immediately at hearing Angjra's voice. He flew over to perch himself on her shoulder. Angjra cooed and petted him profusely as he purred at her attention.

But just as Atela finished her telling and the mood of the gathered community turned celebratory, Angjra spoke into the crowd, her eyes drilling the two head druids coldly. "What of our payment?"

Kren scowled. "There will be time enough later for..."

"Now, human," she said, pronouncing the last like an expletive. She stepped forward to angrily confront the two Druids in charge.

Hilfy stepped forward as well, but with the obvious intent to restrain the young Drow. She felt Vinlesu's hand on her arm, holding her back. The flame-haired elf looked at her former mistress. The Drow woman shook her head slightly, a signal to hold back for now.

She looked back at the Druids and the defiant Drow girl. What was afoot?

Kren and Angjra were arguing now, and the Archdruid admitted there were less than fifty gold crowns in the entire grove.

Angjra pulled back, her eyes narrowing. "You truly expected us to die, didn't you? Its why you were willing to agree to a price you couldn't pay. You must have known about the Dark Druid!"

A murmur of outrage and disbelief went up from the crowd at the accusation, and Elrohir and Atela both started at the words. She scowled at her felinoid lover. "You knew also?"

Atela opened her mouth to speak, but in the end only looked away and said nothing.

"Please," the elderly Elrohir spoke up. "I apologize for my comrade's ill-advised bargain. Still, young woman, we would make good on our payment if possible. We may not have much money, but items of value are another story. Pick anything in the Grove and we'll...hmm." He tilted his head at the felinoid. "You Drow take slaves, yes? You seem to have an affection for the felinoid. Take Atela."

A shocked gasp went through the assembled Druids. Atela seemed shocked most of all, looking with fear and uncertainty into the High Druid's eyes. She apparently found no pity there. In the end she bowed her head and said, "I-I bow to the High Druid's will. I'm yours, Angjra."

The young Drow stepped closer to the two human males, nodding at her new slave before sneering at the heads of the Grove. "Very well, but that is still not enough. Atela is worth perhaps 150, 200 gold crowns at most. We are still owed three hundred more."

Elrohir sighed. "Young lady, I'm sure we can work out some arrangem..."

Angjra's blades ghosted into her hand and she hovered them at Kren's throat. "I demand a life. His. He is the one who was willing to send us to our deaths. I'd say that's a Blood Debt."

"Angjra, no!" Hilfy called. To a Drow, a Blood Debt was taken very seriously. If Angjra swore to a Blood Debt, she could not go back to the Dark Kingdoms without spilling life's blood-her enemy's or her own.

Hilfy turned to Vinlesu for help, but the elder Drow was nowhere to be seen. What was going on?

"Blood Debt," Angjra repeated. The others in the Druid community murmured angrily, and many could be seen raising their staves to call the magic to defend their own.

Her eyes locked with Kren's. "Your fellows could probably take me down. But the question is, how many of them will go down with me? We took out the Dark Druid and its pets. Plus I am the daughter of a very powerful Drow House. My mother and Matron would avenge me with magicks you could not comprehend, much less match. Its your choice Druid. One person dies-you-or many die instead."

Silence stretched, beads of sweat trickling down Kren's half-bald pate. Elrohir spoke up. "Maybe you should do as she says, Kren."

The Druid second-in-command looked stricken at his superior, gulping into a dry throat. Fear danced in his eyes. But slowly, very slowly, he nodded.

"On your knees," Angjra commanded him. He sluggishly obeyed as the young Drow assassin walked behind him, twirling her blade in her hands expertly. A number of the lesser druids stepped forward to stop the proceedings, but were stopped by the High Druid's upraised hands. "Enough!" he called. "Kren has bravely chosen his fate. We will respect that."

The elder human turned toward his protege, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I will pray for your soul to the Earth Mother."

Suddenly Vinlesu appeared behind Elrohir, her own battle knife shuddering through the elderly man's back, blood fountaining as it broke through to his chest. His white robes spattered generously with hot crimson.

Oddly, Vinlesu was covered in a thin layer of frost, her breath puffing visibly into the warm night air. She shivered as though she had just stood naked in a blizzard, but her eyes blazed with determination. "A Blood Debt is a family obligation to a Drow," she said in a harsh whisper in Elrohir's ear. "And the blood we choose is yours, monster."

The High Druid slumped to his knees, giving a keening, wailing shriek nothing human could possibly be capable of. A dark, utterly black coruscation enveloped him, writhing around his body like a tentacled monster. One of the lesser Druids tried to approach, and was swept back by one of the ropy dark tendrils. He fell to the ground, dead.

"Back!" Vinlesu called. "Back, everyone! He is the Dark Druid's host!"

Elrohir snapped his head up, his mouth working in jerky motions, very much like a puppet that body obviously was to him. "The Path will not take me!" he shrieked, obviously fighting against forces unseen. "I will take the entire grove-this entire world-into other realms before I allow that!"

Suddenly dark spectral tendrils were lashing everywhere. Bodies flailed in agony and death.

"He's still too powerful!" Angjra called. Even after all that, they still couldn't put him down. "How can we..."

As if hearing her voice, one of the tendrils of darkness lashed out at her. She froze, horrified, knowing she could never dodge in time, that she had no defenses against such potent magic. Her life was over.

Suddenly, a small green shape dodged in front of the tendril, deflecting it, even as it plummeted immediately to the ground from the shattering blow. "Pokra!" Angjra cried.

A spear of light impaled the writhing mass of dark soul-energy enveloping Elrohir. An inhuman shriek bellowed into the surrounding countryside that nearly shattered every eardrum for miles around.

Hilfy snarled at the other end of the light beam, arms outstretched, howling at the strain of channeling so much energy. "I summon again the power of all the Groves of our Order! As the Council's Envoy, I call upon the energy of every forest and river and field in our influence, to drive this horror into the hell it should have gone to centuries past!"

A heartbeat later, the magic light completely overwhelmed the darkness writhing around the body of Elrohir. The form disintegrated into nothing, and was gone with a thunderclap and a bright flash.

Angjra breathed finally in relief, only to turn to see Hilfy and her mother both lying amongst many other bodies, seemingly lifeless.

Vinlesu hobbled up to Angjra, who was sitting beside the stream where Atela and her daughter had first made love, now two weeks in the past. The Drow sorceress leaned on a druid staff to help her walk. The confrontation with the Dark Druid had been a near thing for her.

She had needed to sneak up on Elrohir, and thankfully he was already distracted by Angjra's ploy. But even so, a magic user of such power would not be easy to take by surprise.

But since he avoided the usual Paths of the afterlife, Vinlesu used what remained of her power that day to enter the nearer of them and approach him from that venue, undetected. Unfortunately, any living person, even a master necromancer, transversing any part of the afterlife can find the journey extremely draining. Even the nearer Veils were freezing beyond measure, darker and bleaker than even the dankest and deepest cave. But the living in that realm appeared as ghosts do in the living world, and allowed Vinlesu to strike at just the right moment. She was only grateful she hadn't been beyond the Veil long enough to draw the attention of that realm's nastier inhabitants.

Her daughter sat with her knees drawn up, head bowed. Just as she used to do when she was upset as a little girl.

Vinlesu sat beside her on the broad log. "It would have been inevitable sooner or later, you know. We outlive wyverns by many centuries."

Angjra looked down at the young sapling only a few feet away that the druids had planted over Pokra's buried remains. A very different method of memorializing the dead than the Drow were used to, but it had seemed appropriate given their surroundings. "He died saving me," she said quietly, biting her lip. Others had died in the battle, but Angjra had not known them.

Vinlesu heaved a great sigh, leaning on the carved wooden staff. She fought with what to say for many long minutes. "Angjra," she said at last, "Atela will be like Pokra, you understand. Only far, far worse for you. Felinoids barely live as long as humans. She will shine bright for a short time, and then be gone."

Angjra thought on that a long while. After everyone had recovered from the confrontation with the Dark Druid, Angjra of course told her lover that she need not be her slave. But Atela had only laughed and said she did not mind at all, and in fact insisted on keeping her end of the bargain.

"I may have been under a geas spell," She had explained to the two Drow, referring to the spell that prevented her and Kren and others from speaking of Elrohir's deeds. "But it feels very right to belong to you, kitten. I have not felt a tug of destiny like this for too long in my life. It feels right, going with you. This must be the path the sacred Earth Mother wants me to walk, so walk it I shall."

Angjra had shaken her head. "You do not understand what it means, to be a slave of the Drow."

"But it is the only way I can be with you, isn't it?" the felinoid had asked. "You're certainly not going to stay up here, you'll go back to the Dark Kingdoms. And the only way I can come with you will be as a slave." She smiled, her maw full of predator's teeth. "Besides, aren't assassins supposed to be sneaky? So let's hatch a plan."

Her daughter had laughed and indeed for the past two weeks the two females had been conniving how they would handle things in the Dark Kingdoms, with Atela pretty much a slave in pretense only. They saw it all, as the young usually see everything, as a grand adventure.

In fact, back in the present, her daughter was smiling again, thinking of Atela. "Just because Pokra's life was short," the young Drow said, "does that mean I should never have taken care of him? That I should not have known him at all, or that the times we made each other happy somehow didn't count because he won't be there now? Just because a book has an ending, does that mean it is not worth reading?"

Vinlesu checked around quickly, making sure no one was watching, then laughed and hugged her daughter. Angjra squirmed, but chuckled herself. "Was that the lesson Pokra was to teach me?"

Vinlesu shrugged. "Close enough."

Another few days, and the Drow and their new slave were prepared to return to the Dark Kingdoms. But her mother had a surprise for her daughter when they stood on the path out of the Grove, pack animal fully loaded. "I'm not going back," Vinlesu announced.

"What?" Angjra said, dumbfounded at her mother. "But...But why?"

Hilfy stepped forward and clasped hands with Vinlesu. No further explanation was needed.

"But what will the Matron think?"

Vinlesu smiled. "I think she will be happy for me. I've wanted to do this-to explore, to wander free, away from House and responsibilities, my whole life. I've seen these past few weeks that you can take care of yourself now, and for a few years or a few decades at least, I want to see the world."

"But the House Auvryant needs you! Our vassal magic users don't have your experience! We-I..." Angjra's eyes shifted about, very aware of Atela and Hilfy and the small knot of Druids watching them. She sucked in her lip anxiously. "The House will not be as strong without you. The House will...will miss you."

Vinlesu tilted her head and crossed her arms. "Oh, will it now? Perhaps I should send a message back with you, reminding the House that it is Drow, the terror of the world. It will find the strength or it will not be worthy for me to return to."

Angjra blinked, and suddenly straightened. Her eyes, for moment on the brink of tears, were dry and lucid now. "Yes. Yes, of course, Mother. This time among the humans must have, um, well never mind. I assure you our House will be stronger than ever."

Vinlesu smiled, and mother and daughter clasped forearms in a final good-bye. Volumes were spoken as their eyes met. They parted as two Drow warriors, equals now that Angjra had passed her coming of age as few of her peers ever would.

"Mistress," Atela said quietly, but with a bemused smile on her lips. "The sun is setting. We best be going, if we want to make good time by dawn."

"Of course, Pet," Angjra said. "Let's get going." With a few more shouts and waves to others in the community, they turned and led their pack mule out of the Grove.

"Hold my hand tight," Vinlesu whispered at Hilfy. "Lest I run after Angjra and hug her to me and never let go."

"She'll be fine," Hilfy said quietly. "There's so much of you in her, I don't see how she wouldn't be. But this must not be easy for you."

Vinlesu watched her daughter disappear down the winding forest trail, a leaden weight tied to her heart. "This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do," she said, her soft voice almost breaking. "I don't know when I'll ever see her again."

Hilfy bumped her playfully with her hip. "Did you notice how they addressed each other? Mistress and Pet. Like mother like daughter."

Vinlesu nodded, managing a smile, as the two of them walked over to their own pack mule. They too would be travelling quite a distance, but down another path, leading to the greater human kingdoms beyond Linden's forest. "Actually, Angjra will be stronger than I ever was. She's the acknowledged heir to House Auvryant, she'll have considerably more power than I did when you were my slave."

"Were?" Hilfy asked with a sly smile.

"Only in bed...Pet," Vinlesu laughed. She grabbed up the pack mule's reigns, and on impulse, kissed the back of Hilfy's hand.

Chuckling, Hilfy asked, "So, what human kingdom did you want to visit first?"

Vinlesu led her former slave, her Pet, out of the Grove and onto the moonlit forest path. "We're together. Does it matter?"


End file.
